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4.5 Acres Cassilis Victoria. Vineyard, Cider Apples and Building the House
I have previously documented the building of the machinery shed in this thread: https://www.woodworkforums.com/f245/m...ferent-156967/ and have been encouraged to start another thread for the building of the house and guest wing (2 separate buildings). We are just about ready to put the roof on the guest wing so although this will be a WIP there is some catching up to do.
We bought the block in January 2009 having found it on the Internet the year before and driving past it. At that time we stayed overnight at Mt Buller (long weekend in January) and went to Cassilis via Bright and Mount Hotham ie. over the top. On that visit the wife thought it was a bit too remote and wasn't really interested.
Back then we owned a holiday house at Loch Sport and intended to retire there. We were looking for a small block in the mountains with a trout stream etc. to build a weekender. After many trips to Loch Sport we realised that we would probably go barmy living there as there wasn't really a lot to do apart from boating and fishing. In a previous life, about 25 years ago we had built a mudbrick house and after a visit to Montsalvat Montsalvat Photos > Buildings & Grounds over Christmas in 2008 we were again inspired and without much discussion agreed that we wanted to build again.
So back to Cassilis for another look, this time through Bairnsdale. The block there was a little run-down and slowly being consumed by blackberries, St John's wort and horehound but did have around 1000 grape vines that had been out of production for a few years.We had arranged to meet the agent on site but she was a hour and a half late. The vendor, Howard, showed us around. He asked how we knew the place was for sale and we told him it was on the Internet. He said; 'How much do they have on it?' I told him it was $85,000, to which he replied, 'I don't want that much!' It was starting to look promising.
After a couple of hours having a look around we went down to the tasting room at Howard's winery (Mt Markey). I asked him directly how much did he want and he said he would be happy with $65,000. We went back home to Geelong, where we were living, and rang him the next evening and said we would take it at that price.
Some photos of what we bought.
Howard leading the way showing me around (note the old canes still on the trellis);
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The state of the vineyard:
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Looking from the North West corner over the future house site. Remains of old trellising and elder bushes visible:
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Looking to the North East corner, This shows more clearly the slope on the site. The mud brick cottage was built by Howard's son but was actually built on crown land (even with a building permit). Not sure what will happen with it but we use it to store the nets for the vineyard. We would like to buy the crown land later on if finances permit but we will have to wait and see.
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Another view looking the South. Elder bushes and black berries abound.
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Our First Vintage, the arrival of the tractor and the orchard ready for planting.
The 3 months from March 2010 to June 2010 were exciting times for us.
In March we had our first vintage in the vineyard. There was a good crop of chardonnay and pinot noir but about 2 weeks before the pinot was due to be picked we got hit with brown rot. We ended up loosing around 75% of the crop. It was very disappointing after all our hard work but could have been worse; at least we weren't doing it for a living.
In May I had some great news. After lobbying my general manager at work I was offered voluntary redundancy. After 31 years in the public service I was ready to go. A redundancy meant a lump-sum payment but more importantly meant I could start drawing my superannuation pension immediately and not have to wait until I was 55. (I was 52 at the time). So I accepted the offer and was out of there.
This gave us some cash so we could buy a tractor, slasher, rotary hoe etc.
In June we started talking to an architect I had found on the Internet. Alvyn Williams from Soft Loud House Architects and he visited the site in June.
Also, we finally had the orchard ready for planting and ordered the apple trees. 120 trees in all due to be picked up in July.
Picking the chardonnay:
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Some of the pinot noir
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The orchard mowed. We actually mowed half of it by hand using the lawn mower before Howard, our neighbour felt sorry for us and mowed the top half with his tractor and slasher
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Looking down from the top dam
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A bit of low cloud for the architect's visit
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Me ripping the orchard with the new tractor
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Orchard ripped in both directions
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Debra straining the wires for the trellis (all materials were recycled from what was there)
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Hope you are OK with this. I will try to get you up to where we are now as quickly as I can and then you can start following the build of our house.
Rickey
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The apples planted and working with the architect
With our new tractor and slasher we finally were able to mow the top part of the block. The bits below each of the dams were still jungle as they were too steep to mow with the tractor.
We went to Beaufort on the long weekend in June to pick up our apple trees from Heritage Fruit Trees Heritage Fruit Trees: Your home for fruit trees the way you remember We are wanting to be able to net them to protect them from deer and birds so we arranged for them to be grafted onto dwarf root stock. We planted the trees at the end of July.
Alvyn, our architect asked us to go to Warburton to meet him and he presented us with 3 different concepts for the build. We hadn't really anticipated it, but he had actually developed a masterplan for the 'estate' (as we like to call our 4.5 acres) which we were very impressed with. When he came and spent time with us we talked about how inspiring we found Montsalvat in Eltham. We love the different buildings and wandering down the paths between them. (check out Montsalvat Photos > Buildings & Grounds if you have never been there). Alvyn also loves Montsalvat. So, the masterplan is an attempt to replicate that feel. It is also an attempt to create a hamlet such as may existed during the gold rush days. (Cassilis is an old gold mining town). Time we will as to whether these attempts are successful.
Looking down the Cassilis Valley towards Swifts Creek. Our vineyard can be seen in the mid-foreground. This was taken from about half way up Mt Markey. We still haven't made it to the top.
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One of the apple trees. $22.50 worth. 3 years later we are very happy with how they have gone but more on that later.
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A view of the orchard. Apples are a bit hard to see. Guards around them to prevent rabbits ring-barking the trees.
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We have gone for the 'Knees, navel, nipples and nose' method of espalier.
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We have 120 apple trees consisting of 12 different varieties. We plan to make traditional cider commercially in a few years time and have planted a mix of traditional cider apples and dessert apples.
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Concept Plan A with comments by the architect
'This has the house in the lowest position on the site, meaning that the vertical distance from the drive and workshop areas is less (ie not so much exercise to get from the car to the house) it moves the house farthest from the dam wall, with a series of naturalistic terraces above the house. It creates a one-sided village streetscape, with the landscape and planting forming framed landscape views to the other side of the valley. A more organic layout (there is a 15m straight line you will be able to swim in the middle of the bent lap pool by the way)'
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Concept Plan B with comments by the architect
'This lifts the house area about 2 – 3m above the farmyard level, allowing more opportunity for expanded flat areas to the north of the house. By facing the house a bit to the east – preferencing morning sun – the impact of the dam wall can be toned down a bit... The workshop area is a drive-through building – there is one at monsalvat like this which would beautifully frame the distant view. The woodshed – i have this idea for a tall funky little structure – perhaps like a folk-clocktower where wood and garden tools can be stored on two levels. You would walk around this structure a lot when passing between the levels... this layout is more like a village that has grown over time than the other options'
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Concept Plan C with comments by the architect
'This is my response to appeasing Rickey’s sense of order, but shows you how a more formal layout can still address the site. Wide terraced gardens and entertainment areas with broad steps (a bit classical Italian maybe) with buildings being in alignment with each other...trickier with solar design,but not impossible and you might be horrified with what i have done with the espaliered orchard (rotated the rows) all in the name of order, but it has a distinctive effect on the site which is not unpleasant in my opinion'
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So, which option did we go for? Well you will just have to wait and see. I'm interested in your thoughts though.
Regards
Rickey
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The Design of the House and Guest Wing