Home, sweet home

Catriona Rowntree travels the globe for her television role as a host of Getaway, but home soil at her family farm in Victoria is where her heart is – especially at Christmas

- STORY JUDY PASCOE | STYLING BELLE HEMMING & KIM WEST PHOTOGRAPHY LEON SCHOOTS

Staycation style As a host of popular television travel show 'Getaway', Catriona Rowntree (pictured) has explored the world.But after falling i n love with a farmer, a tree change to a rural Victorian town was her biggest adventure. She's since filled their home with curated treasures, including her great uncle's 1965 S-Type Jaguar, which she revived with All Classic Car Restorations and her dad. Catriona decorates for Christmas with a conifer wreath from Lily Pond and Sheepdog Jasper by her side.

For television presenter Catriona Rowntree, Christmas is a time to show her true colours, as she decorates her rural Victorian home with lavish swathes of bright, saturated hues and baubles bought on her travels. “Beige be gone,” she laughs. “I have no restraint with colour. I adore its personality and energy, and whether dressing for TV or dressing my home, I love to shift the mood using colour.”

With the festive season meaning a large gathering of the clans – either with her husband James’ family in the country or with her Sydney-based relatives – the celebration is always based on the traditions from her childhood. “Everything I do has been informed by my mum. When I was a little girl she entrusted me with setting the table, starting with picking flowers from the garden to place in vases. Now it is my absolute joy to create a beautiful table for loved ones. We always hang stockings and my children, Andrew and Charlie, love putting up the tree some years it’s a real one, other times we use an artificial tree from my favourite store, Lily Pond in Geelong.”

Trimmed with decorations that Catriona purchased on her travels for Channel Nine’s