Stop all the clocks
A talented daughter-and-dad duo have learnt to embrace taking their time.
For the past three years, Melbourne-based interior designer Andrea Moore has been transforming a group of disused dairy farm buildings into a retreat and accommodation experience. Andrea’s parents bought Ross Farm in 2005, a six-acre parcel of land in Meeniyan, near the southern tip of Victoria. Working alongside her father, Lindsay, they are bringing the old buildings back to life. This can-do attitude has been a defining feature of the Ross Farm project. “Working with limited resources can be freeing in unexpected ways,” Andrea says.
“It has created opportunities to re-use materials that are already here. And we’ve tried to use them in interesting and unexpected ways, as well as make the most of elements such as light fittings, furniture and door hardware.”
Three buildings make up the Ross Farm project: The Cabin (the original 1960s house), which was finished a couple of years ago and, more recently, The Barn and The Dairy. Each property is self-contained and has its own private outlook. The father-anddaughter duo wanted to work within the buildings’ footprints and utilise the existing structures as much as possible. “It was too difficult to conform to the current building codes,” Andrea says. As a result, they mostly rebuilt them, cladding them in the existing materials while maintaining the original proportions where possible. They raised the roofline in The Barn to
allow a mezzanine and added north-facing windows to capture the views of the South Gippsland hills.
The material palette of each building was inspired by the local landscape. In The Barn, Andrea used granite predominantly, inspired by nearby Wilsons Promontory National Park, which is known for its prehistoric landscape and granite boulders. It was used in the kitchen to form the cabinetry fronts and benchtop, in the bathroom from floor to ceiling, and as a continuous bench seat in the dining space.
Many of the materials for the project were sourced from the area too. A lot of the cypress timber used in construction, such as the framework for the sofa and butcher’s block island, were milled locally. “I have a strong idea of the overall aesthetic, which informs the design,” Andrea says. “But it’s led by the materials we can get. Everything is designed with that in mind. In that way, it’s been an organic process.”
As far as possible, they’ve used local suppliers and manufacturers. Andrea wanted to use rusted metal in the build and was inspired to create a spiral staircase. A company in the town of Leongatha folded corten steel for them, and delivered the staircase to the site where Lindsay and local metalworker Paul Lovell assembled and installed it. “We have been lucky to work with a small group of talented local craftsmen who have a can-do approach to new ideas and working with different materials,” Andrea says.
Most of the project has been handcrafted, often at the hands of Lindsay and Paul, who work on site every day. “Quite often I come up with an idea and we flesh it out as to how it can be resolved. That’s when their skill set comes into play, because they have the fine solutions for achieving the result,” Andrea says. Building this way takes time, and Andrea admits it has provided several valuable lessons. “You have to give in to the process,” she says. “Sometimes you have your ideal design or end point but the process can make it better. I used to be a perfectionist but now I see more beauty in imperfection. As Dad often says, ‘It will take as long as it will take’.”
Returning to the area where she grew up has provided Andrea a balm to the busyness of city life. “When I come back to the country I instantly feel calmer and more grounded. Life is still busy, but
I love the feeling of being more connected to nature and the seasons,” she says. “The landscape is beautiful, we’re surrounded by rolling hills and there are beautiful beaches just down the road.”
And now after years of hard work, Andrea is able to enjoy spending time in the kitchen that she designed and her dad built. “That’s where the handcrafted element comes in, because objects become full of meaning and that adds to the soul of the place,” she says. “Everything has a story and this helps create its personality. Although I’m a minimalist, I’m not against having things for the sake of having them, but I’d rather they had purpose and meaning.”