There’s a cafe nearby ...
786 SANDSPIT RD,
WARKWORTH
Folklore has it that parsley has to travel to hell and back seven times before it will sprout, but Hester Lovell has had no such issues getting it to grow. Parsley, chives, fruit and vegetables all thrive on the land she and husband Shaun bought near Warkworth four years ago. And just as well, as the cafe on their property is called The Parsley Pot.
They’d been living on 2.5ha in Silverdale and were given an opportunity to sell, and when they saw this property in the local paper they thought it looked ideal.
“We had three kids in hospitality and I had worked in the hotel industry so I thought this could fix everything for us,” Hester says.
She had originally figured she and Shaun could run the place as a B&B because the existing cafe business was non-operational, but because the kids had all the necessary skills — one daughter a cook and a son a barista — they decided to give it a new lease of life.
The property is on 1.2ha and is multi-functional. The cafe building is 90sq m and the main house and adjoining minor dwelling total 224sq m..
The main house is board and batten with a corrugated iron roof, and the L-shaped timber deck stretches along the front and down one side. There’s more than enough space out here for lounging, dining and entertaining.
The interior floorplan is ideal for a family home, with an open-plan kitchen, dining and living area and three bedrooms all opening up via ranchsliders to the big, north-facing deck. The kitchen has an adjoining scullery, stainless appliances and an eye-catching bright red bench.
“The red bench is not what I would have chosen — it was just sitting perched on top of the drawer units so we could have changed it,” Hester says. “But we decided to keep it and had kitchen units made to go under it. I’ve picked up the red colour in the living room cushions and it actually looks pretty cool.”
Soft grey carpet, off-white walls and white tongueand-groove pitched ceilings with exposed timber beams give the area a light, open feel.
It was planned that Hester’s 90-year-old mum would live with them, so in 2016 she had a two-bedroom house built off-site and delivered as a pre-fabricated unit.
“It arrived on a truck in the middle of the night and they just shunted it off and craned it on to its footings,” Hester says. “We were inside it within an hour.”
Hester loves the main house for its warmth. It has double-glazing and a wood burner, and when the doors and windows are closed, it’s draught-free, warm and quiet.
“And there’s a lovely outlook at the back out to the trees and the beehives,” she says. “Someone else looks after the bees and we get 12kg of honey a year.”
The property was well-planted when the family took over and it’s very easy care. There are flat lawns, a big vegetable garden, fruit trees and, of course, plenty of parsley.
The seemingly innocuous herb is the subject of many a folklore warning. The Greeks associated it with death and spread it on graves, and in Britain it was believed that giving away roots would bring bad luck. That hasn’t been the case for the Lovell family, who have really enjoyed their time here.