Issue 7

Australian Country Homes

A collection of Australia's finest country homes

Australian Country Homes1 min read
Editor’s Letter
As the British poet and critic Edith Sitwell observed, “Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is time for home.” And so welcome to our winter issue, in which we c
Australian Country Homes3 min readFashion
Marketplace
Swenrick Constructions builds wonderful country-style homes throughout Victoria. Plans can be customised to suit individual needs — the company works closely with its clients to ensure that their dream home becomes a reality. All homes are designed t
Australian Country Homes6 min read
Magnificent Moira
There’s a sign in the kitchen at Moira station that reads: “Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Just take it and make it perfect,” which pretty much sums up the way Riverina Water drilling contractor Rex Watson and his events director wife, Kate Pitt,
Australian Country Homes4 min read
Ode to Africa
With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, Julie McIntosh says she became a safari operator out of “pure naivety”. The South African-born founder and director of Sydney-based The Classic Safari Company led a peripatetic childhood, joining her parents as the
Australian Country Homes4 min read
A Passion For Paint
Helen King answers the phone with a chirpy “French and Gorgeous” followed by a slight pause and a deep chuckle. “Actually, I’m neither,” she says. “But I wish I were.” As the creator of a destination homewares store by that name in the Sunshine Coast
Australian Country Homes4 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Beacon of Bounty
Aireys Inlet is a delightfully uncorrupted little seaside haven, which sits on one of Australia’s most iconic tourist attractions, the Great Ocean Road, 90 minutes west of Melbourne. The dominant landmark at Aireys Inlet is the Split Point Lighthouse
Australian Country Homes3 min read
A Royal Tradition
Simon Rowe is practically crowing down the phone from his home at Burra in South Australia’s mid-north. It’s been raining all night at Princess Royal station, where he and his wife, Andrea, and their adult children, Jack, Katherine and Rebecca, have
Australian Country Homes4 min read
Frequent Flyers
An old wooden propeller on the living room wall speaks volumes about Sally Croucher and Michael Ducksbury’s life and loves. Shipped back to Australia from England by Sally’s parents, the prop served for years as a coat hanger in her grandmother’s hom
Australian Country Homes3 min read
Restoration Drama
The old adage that you never know what’s around the corner became a reality when, as a newly graduated nurse, Annabelle Toohey took a job at Condobolin District Hospital in central-western NSW. “It was only ever going to be for a year and then I was
Australian Country Homes3 min read
At Home With History
The precise reason is lost in the mists of time but when the Tunney family built their homestead at Spring Park, they installed a hallway the size of a cricket pitch. Precisely. The present owners, Lil and Richard Westmacott, who bought the property
Australian Country Homes4 min read
A Phoenix Rises
-------------------- Lovers of weekend drives to the countryside, beware. It’s not gravel roads, detours or a remote breakdown you need to worry about — it’s the lure of the country life and an irresistible tug at the heart that could end up costing
Australian Country Homes4 min read
For Love Alone
There are two great love stories in Graham Higgins’ life. One of young love lost and found again, the other a tale of slow-burning passion that led him to his happy place. The leading lady in the first is Nicky Hayward-Wright, Graham’s partner. Nicky
Australian Country Homes4 min read
Hinterland High Life
-------------------- Toni Smith was your typical inner-city girl, raised in Melbourne, living in Brisbane’s bustling Spring Hill and enjoying a successful career as a project manager in construction and mining when she decided to buy an investment p
Australian Country Homes4 min read
Fellow Travellers
The old saying that you should never overlook what’s in your backyard has proven prophetic for Nathan Overell and his wife, Jodie, who are raising their young family in the rich pastoral and dairying country known as the Lost World Valley of southeas
Australian Country Homes4 min read
Grand Designs
As the 19th-century Canadian farmer Nelson Henderson observed, the true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit. And so it was for pioneering pastoralist and winemaker Frank Charles Lewin, who in the 1870s establi
Australian Country Homes3 min read
Heritage Orders
There have been innovators on Mackerode station near Burra in South Australia’s mid-north almost for its entire history since European settlement. Built in 1872 for pastoralist Gustav Gebhardt on what was then Wildotta station, the locally quarried s
Australian Country Homes3 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Where The Heart Is
They say you can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl. While Mildura-bornand-bred Debra Williams says she and her electrician husband, Anthony, were happy when they moved to Melbourne for work, and lived in

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