Linnaeus Farm
Property developer Peter Yannopoulos plans to change the Shoalhaven holiday home scene with a daisy-chain of polished abodes, starting with Linnaeus Farm.
Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who created an enduring system for naming plants and animals, was also a keen purchaser of farms. In the late 1750s while in his fifties he bought three, allowing his family to summer in the countryside and giving him room to nurture plants from around the world.
Fast-forward a few centuries and Peter Yannopoulos has also enjoyed a rural property-buying spree. Yannopoulos isn’t even 30 – he’ll hit that milestone in November – but the go-getting Sydney property developer plans to change the face of the NSW South Coast’s luxury holiday home scene with a daisy-chain of polished abodes.
He’s kicking off that plan with Linnaeus Farm near Berry in the Shoalhaven region south of Sydney. It’s the first property in the Linnaeus Collection, with Yannopoulos planning to convert further acquisitions into glamorous digs over the next 18 months (his love of the area dates back to his youth when his family had a holiday house in Vincentia). By the time he’s done, he’ll be welcoming up to 110 guests across nine properties to experience his take on “comfortable luxury”.
I’m yet to learn of this grand plan when my friend and I roll up to Linnaeus Farm’s custom-made electric gate and bump into Geoff Collins, who’s towing bins to the roadside verge. He jokes about how he’s supposed to be retired but looking after this place is keeping him from that. The next day when we chat further, he reveals a profound connection to this 3.5ha property 3km out of Berry.
Collins shows us through the event space known as Jamie’s Barn, named after the property’s former owner, his late son-in-law Jamie Strong. The voluminous barn, with its intricate hand-crafted rafters, was meant to store a helicopter but Strong, who was a builder, never realised this dream. When Yannopoulos met the Strongs, he promised them he’d keep its essence and only improve on what was already there.
And he’s kept that promise. The meticulous formal gardens – laid out with hedges, vegetable and flower beds, fruit-laden citrus trees and more – remain. He’s added a glamorous swimming pool with neon night lighting; it’s bordered with pretty shrubbery that includes rosemary (or Salvia rosmarinus, to use Linnaeus-speak) and purple sage. It sits below a treehouse cubby that was once a watchtower for the Strong children. Up at the house, its jaw-dropping dimensions that include ceilings that soar 4.1 metres are the first thing you notice upon entry.
Yannopoulos converted the bottom-level garage, filling it with three bedrooms (one with ensuite), full kitchen and living area. Oversized ground-floor doors on both long sides of the house hint at its former usage. I move into the ground floor; my friend takes the top floor that also has a tub. Her bedroom opens on to the sunset-facing rear balcony, a place we gravitate towards for sundowners. Another balcony faces the sunrise, where we breakfast the next day (so vast is this two-houses-in-one arrangement that we co-ordinate our get-togethers via text message).
The two kitchens are well-equipped with everything you need. Some guests might swoon over the high-end appliances and not dream of eating out.
We’re not those people. Luckily for non-cooks, the farm is a short distance from both Berry, where eating options range from casual to sophisticated, and Shoalhaven Heads, a less buzzy town with a surprisingly high-end restaurant. Bangalay Dining showcases native and coastal ingredients in creative dishes such as Lake Illawarra mullet crudo and roe wrapped in nasturtium leaves and Southern Highlands duck glazed in Illawarra plum.
The next morning, I’m awake far too early with dawn birdsong drawing me outside to see the first flush of colour. I wander along the pear tree-lined drive and over the manicured lawns (mowed three times a week) with a morning cuppa warming my hands.
Broughton Creek in the distance and the surrounding flats are buried under dramatic morning mist.
From the fence line, I spy a blanket-wrapped horse moseying through a paddock and a herd of cows in another. The swimming pool reflects a waning gibbous moon.
Collins returns to carry out more maintenance near the barn and explains how a tiny roofless brick structure, wrapped in metal ties to help keep it together, is a tangible link to the farm’s history.
Yet as he points out original and transplanted trees, and other bits and bobs such as the meditation hut in the middle of the top dam and the petanque court, it dawns that the link between past and present is standing right before me.
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Field Guide
Explore: Wander the shoreline of Seven Mile Beach, north of Shoalhaven Heads, or head to Bundanon near Nowra, which artist Arthur Boyd gifted to the nation in 1993. Its new Art Museum is showing Parallel Landscapes, which includes several Boyd paintings of the Shoalhaven River, until November 6.
Dine: For a casual lunch, grab a table in the rear courtyard of The Garden in Berry; find bistro-style haute fare at Queen St Eatery. For a splash-out dinner, drive 10 minutes to Bangalay Dining, tucked behind the dunes in Shoalhaven Heads.
Drink: As the name suggests, Mountain Ridge Wines near Shoalhaven Heads is a top perch for an al fresco glass of wine overlooking the region’s rugged scenery (there’s also free on-site charging for EVs).
Check in: Stays at the five-bedroom Linnaeus Farm start from $2500 a night, with a minimum two-night stay in shoulder and off-peak seasons, and a four-night minimum stay in peak season. Guests receive a seasonal hamper that includes vegetables from the garden, a cheese board and bottle of local wine.
Katrina Lobley was a guest of Linnaeus Farm.