Living the HIGH LIFE

Relaxed barn-style living defines this inviting yet thoroughly stylish weekender in the Victorian Alps.

- Chris Pearson

Former Olympian snowboarder Joh Lyle is not afraid of the cold.

Wearing her new (non-woolly) hat as designer at her studio, Siesta Home, she created her weekender in the Victorian Alps as two pavilions, without even a covered way between them.

"It’s exciting and a talking point," she says. "Running back and forth makes us feel connected to the landscape." In the cooler months - and it gets glacial here - it’s a bracing morning wake-up call. But both wings are always warm and inviting destinations.

She and her husband, Josh, bought the green fields site back in 2015 as a getaway for them and their two children, son Nixon, 14, and daughter Maelle, 12.

On regular pilgrimages to the winter wonderland of Mount Buller, they had often passed this lot, in rugged bushland and with sweeping vistas. "We mulled over properties down on the flat, but kept on returning to this on the steep," she says. "It offered spectacular views." In 2022, Josh put in the first steel framework, completing the project 18 months later.

"I wanted something hard-wearing and robust," says Joh. But above all it had to be simple and unpretentious, and offer a warm and relaxed welcome to a steady stream of visitors. "I wanted it to feel like a big hug," she says.