GREEN BEHIND THE GOLD

A hospitable couple has created party central with their lakeside house close to the national capital.

- KIRSTY MCKENZIE

Forget beer budgets. Grace and Fernando Ferreira cheerfully admit they had Champagne taste on a water budget when it came to their home on a semi-rural site close to Queanbeyan and with easy access to the national capital. With an owner-builder’s licence, some creative recycling and a design by Collins Caddaye Architects (CCA), they have been able to create a showpiece home that fulfils all their aspirations for a hospitable hub that can comfortably accommodate just the two of them or the many guests who routinely respond to their generous natures and open-door policy.

Portuguese-born, Grace had spent time in Australia when her parents moved here when she was in primary school. She returned to her home country in 1987 and met Fernando the following year. They dated for five years before the notion of coming to Australia became a plan. “We came to Queanbeyan because that was where my father lived,” Grace explains. “I hated it for five years, then our boys were born and we started a commercial formwork and concreting business. These days, I never even think of moving back to Portugal.”

Fernando had always dreamed of living on a farm, but Grace was not all that keen. When the boys broke so many windows playing backyard football that the glazier knew the dimensions of every window in their house, Grace eventually conceded that they needed more space and the search for a property in the near country became serious. Although they had planned to buy a vacant block, they couldn’t find anything with the infrastructure they required, so in 2001, they settled on a property with an existing home.