Total Package

Initially attracted to this established garden in the Southern Highlands, the talented new owner then turned her attention to the house that came with it.

- Rosa Senese

Lisa Burdus admits that the house on the rural property she fell in love with in 2016 was very basic. “It was built in the 1990s and didn’t have much character,” she says. “But I knew I’d be able to decorate quickly so I wasn’t worried. All I wanted was a good block of land with mature gardens, and somewhere we could just move into and live.”

One year on, the savvy interior designer has transformed the NSW Southern Highlands property into a true country home with all the attendant qualities of wide green expanses and bountiful produce. Nearby are the picture-perfect towns of Moss Vale, Bowral and Robertson. “It’s a country place with a bit of style,” says Sydney-based Lisa. She and her partner Toby, with their blended family of nine children, use the property as a retreat.

Lisa’s eldest three have finished school and left home, but the couple still share the care of her two younger children and Toby’s four, ranging in age from 12 to 17. Rather than buy a huge home in Sydney’s overheated property market, the couple came up with a plan to enjoy a lifestyle that afforded the best of both worlds: a city apartment and a country retreat for weekends and holidays. They looked at properties of various sizes before finding a 2ha property they liked; the clincher was its thriving orchard and vegetable beds. The unexciting but structurally sound four-bedroom house was the trade-off.