Martin Boetz drawn to bird’s-eye view of Hawkesbury River’s splendour
Chef Martin Boetz’s fertile mind has grown a rustic holiday venue overlooking the Hawkesbury River.
With its large harbour and myriad waterways, Sydney has no shortage of amazing waterviews.
But one of the most surprising has to be the extraordinary outlook from chef Martin Boetz’ Sackville property on the city’s northwestern outskirts.
Spanning more than 11 hectares, Boetz’ land rises to a ridge that offers a gun-barrel view along one of the straightest stretches of the meandering Hawkesbury River.
Beneath the ridge, the river bends in a dramatic U-turn and the quaint Sackville cable ferry clanks its way across the imposing 290m-wide channel.
It was this panorama that convinced Boetz to buy the property in 2011, when he was executive chef at the much lauded Longrain modern Thai restaurant in Sydney’s Surry Hills.
Raised in Brisbane and living in Kings Cross at the time, Boetz had never been to Sackville until he started his hunt for some arable land within 90 minutes’ drive of Sydney’s inner city.
When he inspected the property, he found a neglected cottage on the ridge line and two enormous corrugated tin sheds nearby.
“This is the first place I saw,” Boetz recalls.
“It was so rundown … I didn’t want that much work to do, but then I thought to myself, well, you’re never going to get a view like this.
“I don’t think there’s any house or any land on the Hawkesbury that has this expanse of water view.”
Drawing on the Hawkesbury’s historic role as a food bowl for Sydney, Boetz began farming some of the land and introducing the area’s produce at Longrain.
He left the restaurant soon after to launch his successful Cooks Co-op business, supplying fresh Hawkesbury fruit, vegetables and herbs to other top city chefs, and converting one of the property’s sheds into a rustic venue for long lunches and functions.
The little cottage was spruced up and rented for holiday breaks.
Boetz, who had been leasing a house in nearby Windsor, moved in late last year to oversee the addition of a new commercial kitchen and vegetable garden at the event shed.
The work had just been completed when COVID-19 struck and Sydney went into lockdown.
Boetz decided to stay on in the cottage.
He quickly shifted the Cooks Co-op’s focus, distributing boxes of “seasonal Hawkesbury goodies” and gourmet meals to locals via a drive-through service.
The concept was so successful he’s now turned it into a weekly event, selling boxes packed with local produce like silverbeet, beetroot and salad leaves along with recipe suggestions and some of his popular meals at the Co-op each Thursday.
On the weekend, the Co-op opens its gates to guests keen to enjoy Boetz’ “locals” lunches and dinners as well as special collaborations with leading chefs like Ormeggio’s Alessandro Pavoni and Giovanni Pilu of Pilu.
Inside the event shed, the decor is rustically chic.
It has large wooden tables and chairs sitting under a soaring ceiling, and decorations including deerskin rugs, a striking antler chandelier and generous vases overflowing with magnolia leaves, jasmine, blossoms and herbs.
Boetz has also brought his sense of style to the property’s four-room cottage.
It is a small grey weatherboard building with a corrugated metal roof and a simple linear layout that means every room shares the Hawkesbury views and the northerly light.
In the loungeroom, there’s an antique Austrian wooden provisions cupboard that Boetz bought more than 20 years ago, a striking lamp and cushions from design store Spence & Lyda and a beautiful scarlet Moroccan rug from Kulchi in front of the fireplace.
Artwork includes a delicate collection of jugs made from string mesh and positioned under a glass cloche, a drawing by local artist Greg Hansell and a small James King painting on a book cover depicting a kitchen mixer – a gift to the chef from his mother. Outside, two wicker chairs sit on a natural rock platform, providing the perfect spot to contemplate the view that extends to Gospers Mountain.
Boetz laughingly refers to the small cottage as his “caravan”, before walking further up the ridge line to point out a flat area where he plans to build a bigger home over the coming years.
“From here, the view will be even more dramatic,” Boetz says gesturing to the river, his eye clearly on the future.
Real estate agents make their moves in January job shuffle
While the coastal auction sales season got under way, metropolitan estate agents took the opportunity to make a fresh start in new surrounds.
Take in this beachfront beauty with a $10m price tag
Imagine sitting in your front room and looking out to this view. At Mona Vale on Sydney’s Northern Beaches this absolute beachfront sanctuary captures the imagination.