OPEN INVITE

This handsome home in the NSW Southern Highlands welcomes within its walls both generous rural views and a steady flow of guests.

- CHRIS PEARSON

The owner and the designers of this home in the NSW Southern Highlands share a background in hospitality. It certainly shows in these warm and welcoming hotel-inspired spaces, which deftly mix the communal and the private, the grand and the intimate, the chic and the earthy, all fully savoured in a fine cocktail. Having bought this prime piece of land in 2019, the owner asked architect Phillip Rossington of BVN and interior designer Rachel  Luchetti of Luchetti Krelle for a handsome homestead overlooking a valley and a planned olive orchard – now 42 plants at last count. “On the crest of a hill, its main attraction was the views right out to Mt Gibraltar,” says the owner.

All three had worked together previously on commercial projects, including hotels. But, this time, the client wanted something closer to home, a sprawling weekender, not just for him, his wife and their two teenagers, but also primed for entertaining – and on a generous scale, often with more than 30 guests. And, after those guests had gone, it also had to bunker down as a rural retreat, geared to the entire family, but also where the owner can indulge his epicurean passions (a salamidrying room was a must) and accommodate his vintage car collection. “He wanted a rural boutique hotel-like ambience within a structure that could cosily accommodate immediate family or expand to facilitate larger gatherings,” says Rachel, who worked closely with Phillip to determine the overall look.