In the peak-of-spring flush that brings the best of Mount Macedon’s available properties on to the market, Sefton is undoubtedly this season’s star attraction.
And with a price that will potentially make it one of the mountain’s priciest properties, it would want to be.
With 20 bedrooms – admittedly housed in three buildings on the 8.8 hectares of botanic garden-like grounds – the 1907 heritage-listed spread could possibly qualify as the top trophy property in the old hill station redoubt where Melbourne’s 19th-century wealthy folk went to cool off through summer.
If not for the distant backdrop of eucalypt-covered ridges, Sefton could transport you to the realms of great English country house estates.
It has daffodils, early blossoms, a nine-hole golf course, a backyard tennis court, croquet lawn and kitchen gardens.
Certainly, once behind that tall hedge, and having crunched quietly over gravel on the winding drive and past neck-stretching 100-year-old beeches, maples, oaks, cedars and the odd California redwood, visiting Sefton vividly recalls a more gracious time.
The weatherboard and multiple-gabled main house, a beautifully proportioned and craftsman-detailed Edwardian weekender, was built by a Baillieu. Specifically, by William Lawrence (1859-1936), of the first Australian-born generation of that influential dynasty. By 1901 he was a politician in the Victorian Legislative Council.
His main house was in Camberwell, but early in the 20th century and taking up a site once occupied by Mount Macedon’s original guest house, he commissioned architectural firm Sydney Smith and Ogg to design a retreat on a flattened hill in what is now known as “the Golden Mile” of Mount Macedon Road.
The house was passed down through the Baillieu family, to Lord (Clive) Baillieu of Sefton, and in the early 1980s (and under the auctioneer’s hammer of Baillieu Allard), it went out of private hands when it sold to Elders IXL, with John Elliott and his executives using it as a country getaway and conference centre.
In 2005, it was sold on for $8.17 million to the medical and health industry-related Gribbles Group. All through these sales, the property and the gardens have been maintained to a meticulous standard.
Details: here
By Jenny Brown, Domain
