Step Back In Time: A beautiful historic home decorated for Christmas
FESTIVITIES HAVE A DECIDEDLY TRADITIONAL AIR AT THIS LOVINGLY RESTORED 1859 COTTAGE NEAR TARADALE IN VICTORIA.
AS CHRISTMAS DRAWS near, it’s little wonder that trimming the tree is such a beloved annual ritual for Sharon Randall. In mid-november she brings out her extensive collection of exquisite antique Christmas ornaments and the joy of decorating begins. The extraordinarily fragile and opalescent ornaments aren’t hung on a natural or artificial tree; rather, they adorn a rare German-made feather tree that dates back to the late 19th century. Traditionally made with dyed goose feathers entwined on a wire frame, it lights up the home she and her husband Ron Witherow painstakingly restored at Taradale, 105 kilometres north-west of Melbourne.
On the kitchen mantel a menagerie of carved wooden sheep are corralled inside a wooden shaker box. “The sheep are German too, known as putz. They are very old and difficult to find so I’ve collected them one by one. If there was a fire, they would be the first thing I’d grab!” says Sharon. “Once the tree is up, I move things around as we come closer to Christmas.”
Sharon, who grew up in Melbourne, fell in love with vintage European ornaments as a child when she visited a neighbour’s house at Christmas. She has been collecting them ever since. “My neighbour’s grandmother was Swiss-italian and had brought a lot of beautiful Christmas decorations with her when she migrated from Europe. They had the most sensational Christmas tree I had ever seen. It was so amazing they almost had to peel me off the floor to take me home at night. That Christmas scene was always in the back of my mind, so when I was travelling in Europe in my 20s, I began looking out for antique decorations.”
Rose Villa, the gracious old home Sharon and Ron bought in 2017, overlooks historic, sleepy Taradale and, in the distance, the town’s monumental bluestone viaduct that brought reticulated water to the town in the 1860s. Here, Sharon’s traditional, almost magical, Yuletide decorations that so nostalgically evoke Christmases past have found the perfect setting. Refurbished with stunning archival wallpapers, restored wood-grain woodwork, and the couple’s curated collection of antique furniture, textiles and artworks, Sharon and Ron have coaxed the house into a state that closely resembles its heyday. “We tried to honour the home as much as possible, keeping it as original as we could,” says Sharon.
Sharon and Ron, who grew up at Murmungee in Victoria’s north-east and is a dab hand at welding, are serial renovators who have restored several of the oldest homes in central Victoria. “I have always appreciated old homes,” Sharon says. “I grew up in quite a formal household with lots of antiques.”
Three of their previous properties were in or close to nearby Kyneton, but they longed for a small acreage. “We loved our last home — and the garden — in Kyneton, but we didn’t have much privacy and Ron, being a country boy, was completely over living in town.”
They had just missed out on one property when Rose Villa, on nearly half a hectare of garden and paddock, came on the market. They came to the inspection, made an offer the same day, and became Rose Villa’s new owners. Even so, Rose Villa wasn’t completely unknown to them. They had first noticed the old house 20 years earlier when helping friends move >
Sharon’s traditional, almost magical, Yuletide decorations that nostalgically evoke Christmases past have found the perfect home.
“I have always appreciated old homes. I grew up in quite a formal household with lots of antiques.”
into the cottage next door. “I still remember that day bringing all their furniture in, and asking ‘What is that house next door?’ Our friends said, ‘You would love it, it has all the original wallpaper and all the original furniture, but it hasn’t been properly lived in for 40 or 50 years’,” says Sharon.
Rose Villa was built by William Graham, a butcher who went on to become the last mayor of Taradale in 1870. From the turn of the 20th century, three successive generations of the Hookey family lived there, with the last resident, Marjory, residing there for all of her 80-plus years. “There was no heating in the front rooms, so Marj had renovated a little room at the back for her bedroom. There was a bathroom and the kitchen with a Nectre wood fire, so she would close the door to the rest of the house to retain the warmth,” Sharon says.
When Sharon and Ron took over, the original front rooms were still furnished “like a museum”, much to Sharon and Ron’s delight. Delight turned to dismay when they opened the windows to let fresh air in — the original wallpapers began peeling off. And, having been built in an era before damp courses, moisture had risen up the walls to waist height. In one room, the fireplace insert had burnt out and not been used for decades, and the beautiful grain of the original birdseye maple joinery was concealed under thick brown paint.
With the help of Geelong-based restorer/designer Luke Ward and “an army” of restoration experts, the couple resurrected most of the major interior work in the space of two months. “We took off all the plaster where the damp was, and the skirting boards, and stripped the paint off the timber — it was a painful job,” says Sharon. The original intricate verandah fretwork was long gone, but using an old Hookey family photograph as reference, they had it remade. “The original was all made of iron but during World War I, everyone gave up their iron for King and country. Luke drew it up by hand and made it out of timber.”
The house had been built in stages, the first two rooms with their lower ceilings and Georgian-paned windows in 1859, and the second two loftier rooms, in the 1870s. At the back, a large kitchen wing with high cove ceiling is thought to be a later rebuild of the original. It too will be renovated down the track, but for the time being Sharon and Ron bought the kitchen cabinetry they put in their previous house from the current owners, and installed it in the kitchen at Rose Villa.
Earlier this year, they were side-tracked from their project when the cottage next door — the same one they had helped their friends move in to — came up for sale. The 1860s home, Mcalpine’s Cottage, named after the first owner and on nearly a quarter of a hectare of land, has diminutive rooms with coved timber ceilings. “One of the rooms is wattle and daub,” says Sharon. The couple bought the cottage and have since restored it for the use of visiting family and friends
While Sharon candidly admits she finds it difficult to resist a renovation opportunity — “There are about three abandoned houses I see on my morning walks that I’d give my right leg to restore” — the couple’s next task is decorating Mcalpine’s Cottage for Christmas too. “I’ll put up a feather tree, the oldest one I have, and I’ll leave that unadorned because it’s rustic and beautiful as it is,” she says. But there’s one more final touch she likes to add, just as the festivities begin. “On Christmas Eve, we usually have a big party, with lots of carols and singing. By then I love to have the place filled with beautiful fresh flowers too!”
Sharon Randall offers a small selection of vintage Christmas ornaments on Instagram @sharonran1