Where to stay in the Southern Highlands
There’s history, creativity, gardens and friendly dogs at Tim Storrier and wife Janet’s grand Southern Highlands manor.
Janet Storrier is on a mission to “untizz” her precious slice of the Southern Highlands. Walking through the gardens of Hopewood House, the 4.5ha estate where Janet and artist husband Tim have lived since 2013, she points out things she and gardener Hunter Schrader-Wright have taken out. “We’ve got rid of about 40 tonnes of agapanthus and all the bad stuff. I took down a massive laurel hedge, but I’ve kept oakleaf hydrangeas – at least they do something.” We’re standing on a paved terrace by a giant outdoor fireplace. “You can see through the different levels of the garden,” Janet adds. “For me, Hopewood is about the beautiful old trees. Now we’re going native wherever we can, and all kinds of birds have returned.”
The king parrots are her favourites, and when we visit towards the end of winter we see crimson rosellas, magpies and satin bowerbirds among Tim’s bronze sculptures, along with 10 Sussex chickens and resident rooster Teddy. “As in Teddy Roostervelt,” explains Tim, as if it should be obvious. A large and raucous chattering of cockatoos (has there ever been a better collective noun?) is ripping bits off trees, as cockatoos do. Janet’s whippet, Pickles, and Maremma sheepdog, Egg, who indeed protects the chooks, escort our garden tour. Janet got her horticulture diploma when she was “a bored doctor’s wife” with her first husband. “I went off to Ryde School of Horticulture, never thinking I’d be looking after anything so lovely as these gardens.”
Friendly dogs, history, art, gardens and restored grandeur are all waiting to be discovered beyond the estate’s iron gate, where two Storrier bronze horses stand sentinel. And there are accommodation options available. We stay in the two-bedroom Serendipity, with two bathrooms, full kitchen and an enormous sitting room. The beds come with electric blankets to top up the comprehensive gas and electric heating and even if it snows, as it occasionally does, it’s toasty warm.
Built in 1884 for a pastoralist, Hopewood House has a chequered history. Until the Storriers, its most famous owner was Lebbeus Hordern, a scion of the retail dynasty. In 1928, World War I veteran Lebbeus died from a laudanum overdose in Darling Point at the age of 37. The renowned aviator was something of a Jay Gatsby character, throwing lavish parties at Hopewood House. Legend has it he’d phone the staff from Sydney to alert he was flying to Bowral, and they’d lay out linen as a makeshift airstrip in the gardens.
There were less salubrious years from 1944-1970, when Hopewood became a home for children born out of wedlock, who were told they were orphans and fed a raw diet by a lingerie magnate who bought the house for what he called his “experiment”. More infamy followed when a Catholic order took it over for a retreat and youth centre, closed down in the wake of sexual abuse convictions.
Before the Storriers arrived, the property was “well-loved and restored” by two subsequent owners, says Janet. She and Tim have done more restoration work and Hopewood House has been a prime location for weddings and events. They’ve recently called a stop to that in favour of Tim expanding his studio to take over all of the light-filled pavilion that sits uphill from the residence.
At 73, the artist, who won his first Sulman Prize aged 19 and remains its youngest winner, is not slowing down. We spy him zipping down the hill from his studio in a golf buggy, returning from the residence with reference books under his arm. Next morning, the 2012 Archibald Prize winner carts a bale of hay across to the chook house, where Trigger the fox terrier is hunting for scraps.
The Storriers have seven adult children between them. “It might seem insane we’re living in this huge house,” says Janet. “But when they all come home with their partners, we’re scrambling for bedrooms.” A handful of long-booked weddings are scheduled, perhaps some small philanthropic events, and selected location shoots.
But, says Janet, “It’s time to bring up the drawbridge a bit.” That means booking into the accommodation or joining the annual Australian Garden History Society fundraiser at Hopewood (the next is scheduled for April 29, 2023) are essentially the only avenues to visit.
The house is private but staying guests are welcome to use the main residence’s expansive verandah, enjoy the outdoor fireplace and wander the gardens, perhaps finding a picnic spot or collecting racquets and balls from beside the front door for a spot of tennis. The accommodation is furnished with an eclectic mix of antiques and contemporary art, and most of the furniture came with the couple from Blackdown Estate, their previous home in Bathurst. Hopewood House is minutes from Bowral and much closer to Sydney than Bathurst, but the Storriers obviously love staying ensconced right here, enjoying the delights of this increasingly “untizzed” estate.
To-do list
Visit here
The Hordern family clearly fancied Southern Highlands life. Retford Park was built for Samuel Hordern and later bought by James Fairfax, who left it to the National Trust. On weekends, you can tour inside the house, where Donald Friend’s bonkers murals alone are worth the price of admission. Regional art gallery Ngununggula and Hearth Cafe recently opened in the old dairy and vet clinic on the estate. If you pop into Milton Park Country House for high tea you will have collected the set of local Hordern estates. Bowral’s Tulip Time festival, featuring 75,000 mass-planted bulbs in bloom, runs each year from mid-September to early October.
Shop here
There’s vinyl, oil paintings, vintage clothes and all manner of knick-knacks to be found among more than 80 independent stalls at Dirty Jane’s Antiques. There are regular themed events in springtime.
Drink here
Centennial Vineyards and its restaurant are a short walk from Hopewood House. Lunch, Devonshire tea, high tea and wine and chocolate appreciation sittings available, along with cellar-door tastings ($10 a person, with $5 off
wine purchased).
Meet the makers here
Makers have lived, worked and taught at Mittagong’s Sturt Gallery and Studios for more than 80 years. The gallery shop is next level, and the cafe extends out to the garden, where peonies and magnolia planted by founder Winifred West still blossom.
Bowral is about 90 minutes from Sydney by road. Hopewood House accommodation from $350 a night for Mandalay studio; two-bedroom Serendipity, from $550 a night.
Jane Nicholls was a guest of Hopewood House.
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