Escape to the country in a strawbale home

Chris and Alison invite you to luxuriate in "Scuppers'", our owner-built strawbale home.

Chris is an English teacher and Alison an occupational therapist. Neither is an engineer or builder, so the house is constructed from poetry and practicality, and it shows! The owners' time living in Oxford and travelling the world is reflected in the maps and art around the home. The deeply recessed windows and doors, use of timber and earthen walls will appeal to the Tolkien and C S Lewis aficionados.

Set on a hilltop at the source of the Gwydir River, "Scuppers'" is a unique eco-friendly homestay experience.
Lovingly and painstakingly built, the strawbale construction makes it beautifully cool in summer and soakingly warm in the bitterest of New England winters.

There are four large bedrooms; Bedroom 1 has a kingsize bed, ensuite and open fireplace for winter nights. Bedroom 2 has a double bed and two single beds. Bedroom 3 has a huge hand-built queen bed and Bedroom 4 a queen bed and open fireplace.
All the bedrooms have french doors which open out to the wrap around verandah and have exceptional outlooks onto the surrounding farmland and mountain and valley views.
The large 10x10m living area includes the kitchen, dining and lounge areas and sits under a cathedral style ceiling.
There is a very large and well appointed kitchen complete with french door refrigerator, huge 100cm 6 gas burner cooktop and 2 electric ovens, plus microwave and plenty of bench space, making meal preparation for a crowd a snack.
The dining area features a local wool-classing table repurposed as a dining table which easily accommodates 12 people and has convict era pews on either side.
The lounge area is arranged around the massive fireplace which can function as both a slow-combustion fire and open hearth due to its unique construction. In winter, the fire easily warms the entire living area to a very comfortable temperature with no cold spots.
The bay windows in the living area frame the views of Mount Yarrowyck to the north-west and the valley views to the south-west.
The English-teaching owner has a fetish for deep, comfortable and well-worn leather lounges and, as a result, there is something of an oversupply of these. Guests will be torn between stretching out in these in the lounge, the gauzed-in verandah, the bedroom or the "book-nook".
Outside, the verandahs allow guests to make the most of the views in every direction. Our preferred space for morning coffee is the gauzed-in conservatory style section on the north side, with views of the dry-stone wall and over it, the Pinnacles and Mount Yarrowyck. The western verandah is shaded in summer by an ornamental grape vine which provides a secluded area to doze in the hammock. The south has a very large 7x8m open deck for entertaining with spectacular views over the head of the Gwydir and the Rocky River Valley.
The house was designed by renowned local draftswoman Kerry Hawkins, and hand-built by its owners from local materials. The straw for the walls was harvested and baled for purpose by a farming friend, the floors milled from the timber on the property and the dry stone walls from the hill on which the house is built.
The garden area includes a expansive lawn, and there is an orchard from which visitors are welcome to help themselves to the fruit, if they can beat the birds to it!
There are no other houses within view of "Scuppers'" and the nearest neighbour is around 250 metres away. The southern deck is perhaps the best place to enjoy the almost complete silence, especially at night time, which is likely only disturbed by the crickets, the abundant bird life or the occasional koala grunting in the trees.
The home is sensibly eco-friendly. It is serviced by grid-connected solar power and pure rainwater. The design is solar-passive, which means that the winter sun helps warm the house by shining on the tiled area on the northern side of the living area. The same tiles also cool the home in summer when they are in the shade.

The gravel driveway is about a kilometre long and, due to the wet summer so far, is pretty rough and pot-holey. Until it is graded, it is not recommended for low-slung cars unless the driver is confident of picking his/her lines!