Property at centre of suspected dog attack was site of earlier tragic death

The property known as the Universal Power House in Sydney’s south where a 23-year-old man was found dead this week after a suspected dog attack was meant to become a global mecca spreading a message of peace, love and truth.

The bizarre building – also known as Saturn’s Rings or Mount Universe – and its founder, Polish immigrant Stefan Dzwonnik, has fascinated locals, inspired art installations and videos, and attracted stickybeaks.

Dzwonnik’s universal principles were designed for humans and animals to live in harmony. Attempts to visit the unusual building on Badgally Road, Eschol Park near Campbelltown, have not always ended with peace and love, but with security and dogs, locals say.

For Caroline Adams’ late sister, 16-year-old Melanie Bazley, a visit to the unfinished site in early 1982 ended in tragedy. Melanie died after falling from the top of one of the unfinished building’s “Saturn rings”.

On the Campbelltown/Macarthur community noticeboard a few years ago, Adams addressed false reports that her sister’s death was an “urban myth”.

“My sister Melanie Bazley was killed in an accident there in February 1982, after falling 40 metres from the top level.” The Herald’s archives include a photograph and notes confirming Melanie’s death.

Construction of the building began in the late 1970s, then stalled for some years.

Adams wrote: “What is hard to accept is the fact that, this place, in its unfinished form for years … abandoned, was renowned for kids hanging out, riding bikes, drinking, etc and nothing was done to stop it.”

Five dogs were removed from the property on Friday to be euthanised, and a 53-year-old man was treated for a minor hand injury.

NSW Police said that extensive investigations were continuing. They said the injuries on the man’s body suggested he had been attacked by dogs before his death.

Campbelltown City Council’s historian and local cities librarian, Andrew Allen, gets more comments and questions about it than anything else. He said it was one of those things that “just fascinate people”.

Allen wrote on his blog, The History Buff, that one of the more “unusual constructions built in Campbelltown was the Universal Power House or Saturn’s Rings perched high on a hill”.

Construction began around 1979 and continued for some years afterwards. “At the time, the building was regarded as one of the most spectacular in NSW with a limitless, panoramic view of the surrounding countryside,” Allen wrote.

“So what was the purpose of this unique building?” he wrote. “Stefan Dzwonnik had plans for it to be the mecca for a worldwide movement directed towards a better life on Earth. It was intended to become the home of him and his family; the ‘power house’ of his proposed Universal Power World Society.”

The home’s design was based on the rings of the planet Saturn and comprised three concentric units. Its top level was the family home, while the rest was for the society.

A reader told Allen that when he went to see the concrete rings he was “chased down the hill by a dog at one point”. “Never went back there,” he said.

Another, NeonTube, said an attempt to visit was halted by a few guard dogs and two security guards.

Others were curious. “Us kids trekked all the way up there making it to the top to explore the rings, knowing we were trespassing but excited at being there. Within the two years we lived in Eagle Vale I think I must’ve gone up that hill more than a handful of times.”

Anyone with information, CCTV, dashcam and/or mobile phone footage in relation to the recent incident is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.