When chef, gardener - and dreamer - Annie Smithers bought her Malmsbury property 14 years ago, she had a vision of a house surrounded by productive gardens.
Which was all very well, except that vision was buried beneath a vinyl-clad house with aluminium-frame windows and a garden that had managed to nurture only one tree, a gum, in its 100-year history and even that had to go because it was planted too close to the house.
Today, thanks to Smithers' passion and efforts, the house, garden, soil and productivity are much improved. The property in the pretty goldfields town of Malmsbury has been Smithers' home base, a kitchen from which to conduct her popular cooking classes and a bountiful source of produce for her highly successful Trentham restaurant, Du Fermier.
"It's hard to know exactly how much the garden produces, in kilograms, but we estimate the fruit and vegetables have a shop value of $50,000 a year," Smithers says. "In a good year, I get 100 kilograms of berries. I get 1000 individual quinces from three trees and each week I cut about two and a half kilograms of rocket and lettuce."
On four titles, the irregularly shaped block has the house towards the street and the large vegetable garden and orchard towards the back - with potential for a further house to be built on one of the back blocks which have side access from a dirt road.
Smithers' house is now a comfortable and smart mix of its Edwardian past and contemporary styling. The grey and white exterior is crisp and these colours continue inside with a grey and timber kitchen. The kitchen is simple but well equipped - and without the clinical commercial feel many lesser cooks might have included - and it adjoins the white-painted, timber-floored dining and living room which opens to the garden.
There are two bedrooms at the front of the house and one adjoins another room, painted that smart grey, that could be the third bedroom or another living room. And, then, in the garden is a studio or another bedroom that allows for many pursuits or hobbies.
And, although not many people buy a house for its back porch, Smithers' house includes an extremely large area where the chef/gardener keeps her harvesting baskets and a small table to sit and eat - or just stare at her handiwork. It's a classic country feature, with the laundry opening from here so you can clean up before you walk inside.
The extensive garden will be Smithers' legacy. There are bluestone-blocked and raised garden beds, heritage fruit trees and well-netted berry beds. Oh, and five separate fox-proof chicken enclosures. "I have different breeds and I like to keep them separate."
All of the bluestone came from the property - "all the properties round here had it" - and the solid base it provides for the garden beds somehow confirms this productive patch as way beyond most suburban efforts.
Smithers knows the four blocks provide redevelopment potential but her "wish and hope" is that the next owner continues with the garden, and loves it she has. Foodie tree-change anyone?
8 Ross Street, Malmsbury
3 bed 1 bath 2 car
$800,000+
Auction: Noon, April 22
Biggin & Scott 5348 2328, Tom Shaw 0438 118 903
