Country Style

The slow life: Living on a beautiful flower farm in Tasmania

ON A PATCH OF LAND IN SOUTHERN TASMANIAN, THIS FAMILY LIVES IN A PURPOSE-BUILT HOME SURROUNDED BY FLOWERS AND BUSHLAND.

- WORDS HILARY BURDEN PHOTOGRAPH­Y MARNIE HAWSON STYLING MICHELLE CRAWFORD

INSPIRATIO­N FOR HOUSE DESIGNS can come from many places, but for southern Tasmanian couple Marian and Rob Wiltshire it was endless moving that made them realise how little space they really needed.

Five rental properties in six years — each move forced by the owner selling up — gave the couple an understand­ing that, for them, the ultimate living area should be no more than four metres by four metres in size. “Anything bigger seemed cold and intimidati­ng,” says Rob.

When it came to designing their own home with as small a footprint as possible, Rob reached for inspiratio­n in an American book he had on his bookshelf, 25 Houses under 1500 Square Feet, and one particular building, Teviot Springs Vineyard, that won several awards for the American architectu­ral firm Turnbull Griffin Haesloop.

The long, narrow structure, known in the United States as a ‘dogtrot’ house, features a central breezeway, with two parts of the house on either side. From those first drawings made in 2005, Marian and Rob called their future home, The Hut, further inspired by the heritage Huon Valley apple-picking huts found in the surroundin­g area, as well as their desire for a minimalist, understate­d dwelling.

“I took a little while to get used to the idea of a long, narrow house,” explains Marian. The home is 27 metres long and four metres wide. “There’s not a lot of space, but we always knew we’d spend a lot of time outside.” It also took a while for the couple to find this north-facing block that is located on three-and-a-half hectares of pasture at Oyster Cove in the Channel region, 35 minutes from Hobart. Rob had already built a scale model of their future home out of balsa wood, right down to the silver, corrugated roof.

As a self-taught designer, Rob also took inspiratio­n from the historic Heemskerk Winery (now Jansz Tasmania Wine Room), built during the 1970s by his late father, vigneron pioneer Graham Wiltshire.

“I didn’t realise it had been such a formative experience,” says Rob, “but The Hut roof had to be at an angle of 90 degrees — the same angle as the Heemskerk wine shed, built in the style of a Dutch barn. I also wanted the same board and batten cladding in Tasmanian celery top pine, which I eventually sourced from a sawmill in Geeveston — there are so few mills around now.” Marian adds: “We wanted to ground it in Tasmania using Tassie timbers.”

The botanist couple, who met at the School of Plant Science at the University of Tasmania, started their build in 2011.

On a sunny but cool midwinter’s day, the Wiltshire family is entertaini­ng with the sliding glass doors open wide onto the terrace. Rob has baked a pear cake for the occasion and is making tea while their seven-year-old identical twins Elisabeth and Maggie have set up their own afternoon tea set on the living room floor.

Instagram followers first met the twins in 2012 when they were born 26 weeks prematurel­y. “We were put through the ringer a lot and didn’t have the energy left >

at the end of the day to deal with real people,” says Marian. “But a quick post on something in my day found a following online. We had a lot of online love from Insta at that time.”

The Hut is designed around a custom-built window seat in Tasmanian myrtle. To offset the newness of the house, the interior is furnished in solid timber vintage pieces. It is a mid-century modern look: myrtle dressers made by Myer in the 1950s; a worse-for-wear Hydro Tasmania myrtle boardroom table, complete with coffee cup rings, picked up at Antiques Warehouse in Hobart; and Piper’s Truline Tasmanian blackwood chairs, designed and manufactur­ed in Ulverstone, rescued from the tip and curbside recycling. Rob says Marian can spot a Piper’s Truline at 50 metres!

“With these pieces, our new home already felt like a home because the furniture pre-dated us by 60 years,” says Marian.

Rob is thankful for the years they had to consider their ideal dwelling. “We wanted light and airiness,” he says, “with views framed by windows and doors.”

With less space and open-plan living, The Hut is fit for purpose, enabling family life to spill naturally outside, as well as bring the inside in — afternoon tea was interrupte­d by a fossicking quoll visible though a side window.

Having twins in a compact living space has forced Marian and Rob to be more mindful of how much stuff they collect. “It helps us be minimalist because there’s not enough space to put it,” says Rob. “We wanted a simple house — and the girls do change that a bit — so for every one thing we buy, we have to throw one thing out.”

Outside, Rob is in the middle of rotavating rows for a new flower field to supplement their existing establishe­d flower gardens, growing garden-style roses, dahlias, ranunculus, sweet peas and other perennials and annuals. This adds to the cutting garden, and orchard.

Now that the twins are older, Marian has been able to pursue her passion for gardening and feed her dreams by establishi­ng a small-scale flower farm on the property, growing sustainabl­y grown flowers for florists and event designers in Tasmania. “The girls decided we were going to be flower farmers,” she says. They just started telling everyone, ‘Mummy is going to be a flower farmer.’”

Marian explains the aim is to cut down the distance cut flowers have to travel, as well as the chemicals that have to go onto flowers when they come into Australia.

“You want them to be safe for people to smell,” says Marian, “and not look like they just came out of a box.”

While posting daily Instagram updates about The Hut flower farm, Marian says the twins now have a sense of ownership over the whole garden and think of it as their own. One of their favourite things to do — totally unprompted — is to pick a posy for their visitors.

Meanwhile, for Rob, The Hut’s designer and in-house chef, a favourite aspect of the house is being in the kitchen, seeing his family present: the girls playing on the window seat; Claudia, their nine-year-old German shepherd, curled up on the rug; and Marian busy doing something she loves. Follow the farm on Instagram @thehutflow­erfarm

 ??  ?? Chocolate lace flower (Daucus carota) is one of Marian’s favourites and has good repeat flowering and variations in colour. FACING PAGE Identical seven-year-old twins Elisabeth (left) and Maggie set up a flower shop in their orchard cubby, a mini version of The Hut, constructe­d using native musk (Olearia argophylla) while their German shepherd Claudia supervises.
Chocolate lace flower (Daucus carota) is one of Marian’s favourites and has good repeat flowering and variations in colour. FACING PAGE Identical seven-year-old twins Elisabeth (left) and Maggie set up a flower shop in their orchard cubby, a mini version of The Hut, constructe­d using native musk (Olearia argophylla) while their German shepherd Claudia supervises.
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 ??  ?? Marian designed the terraced, parterre cutting garden based on the work of English garden designer and television presenter Monty Don. In the summer months, fennel and euphorbia are in abundance, kept neat by clipped box hedge borders.
Marian designed the terraced, parterre cutting garden based on the work of English garden designer and television presenter Monty Don. In the summer months, fennel and euphorbia are in abundance, kept neat by clipped box hedge borders.

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