There are properties you inspect and properties you fall in love with. This is the latter. Built from solid granite in c1854 as the homestead of a mixed farm of orchards, dairy, forge and grazing, and extended with French Provincial intent in the mid-1990s, this is a property that earns its scale and earns your heart. On approximately 191.6 acres at the foot of Mount Alexander, it reads as something closer to a European domaine than a Central Victorian holding, and yet it is entirely, specifically, this place. A quintessential country road lined with ancient gums runs along the boundary. The bitumen runs all the way to the gate. From the moment you turn in, something shifts, the quiet recognition that places like this are not found so much as stumbled upon, once in a lifetime.
The original homestead stops you at the threshold. Walls 60cm thick. Ceilings are approximately 3.3m. Timber French-style external shutters frame windows. A wide central hallway draws you through and out to the garden beyond. Timber floors worn beautifully by generations of life. Large double-hung windows with deep sills. A snug with an open fireplace where, on a winter evening, you will not want to be anywhere else.
The formal dining room is the heart of the house, and it knows it. A period fireplace with original surround anchors the room. The ceiling height, the proportions: this is a room made for long dinners, for serious conversation, for the kind of gathering that justifies a country estate of this scale. It adjoins a sitting room with external access to a north-facing deck and garden, the natural progression from table to courtyard on a warm evening, a glass still in hand.
The updated kitchen and dining area is where romance meets practicality. Terracotta-tiled floors, stainless steel and Jarrah benchtops, a 900mm freestanding gas cooktop with under-mount oven, dishwasher, and walk-in pantry. Contemporary white cabinetry opens to a further living area with a Nectre solid wood heater and double glazing, the kind of room that fills with people on cold afternoons without anyone quite knowing how it happened. Sliding doors open to a vine-covered entertaining courtyard, a pergola draped in established vines and dappled with the kind of light that makes everything look like a painting. Updated laundry with a separate toilet.
Four generous bedrooms occupy the period home, two with built-in robes and open fireplaces with period surrounds. These rooms are serviced by an updated bathroom featuring an exposed stone wall, a shower screen extending from it, a walk-in shower, a vanity and a toilet. The fifth and main bedroom occupies the upper level of the French Provincial extension, a private retreat with a split system, ensuite, dual-access walk-in robe, and French doors opening onto a private balcony. Stand there in the morning with the countryside spread before you, and the decision will already be made. A dedicated home office sits on the other side of the staircase.
The original dairy, a granite outbuilding with a timber-lined shingle ceiling, has been converted to guest accommodation with a mezzanine level. Two additional studios offer flexible use. The large shed, built in 1900 as the fruit packing shed, and the shearing shed dating to 1950, speak to the working history of this land and remain in active use.
Outside, the estate unfolds generously. The in-ground tiled pool sits beneath a grapevine-clad pergola with Roman-style column detailing, part garden room, part folly, entirely lovely. The tennis court has its own vine-covered terrace. The parterre garden, fire pit area, and extensive lawns are framed by gleditsia, pencil pines, ornamental pears, poplars, and rambling roses whose scent stops you mid-stride. Fruit trees, raised vegetable gardens, a chicken pen, and remarkable birdlife complete a kitchen garden that will change how you think about dinner. The front verandah is flagstone, wisteria-clad, and faces the world with quiet confidence.
Sutton Grange district, are well-watered and well-grassed. Water security underpins everything here. A 13.7-megalitre water right from the Coliban channel is the foundation. A gravity-fed system supplies 14 garden taps without reliance on a pump or pressure. A 14-station computerised underground watering system manages the gardens with precision. The largest of several dams is spring-fed, a reliable year-round source independent of rainfall. For the serious horticulturalist, the working farmer, or the buyer who has watched other properties struggle through dry summers, this infrastructure is the difference. Sutton Grange's rich soils reward access to water. This property has it in full.
Infrastructure includes a 5kW solar system, Starlink internet, alarm security, electric wall heaters, double glazing, and extensive shedding, including a double carport, garden shed, and machinery shed.
Properties like this do not come along often. At the foot of Mount Alexander, on bitumen, with a boundary road that looks exactly as a Central Victorian country road should, ancient gums, open sky, and the quiet certainty that something extraordinary lies beyond the gate. It does.
20 minutes to Castlemaine. 30 minutes to Bendigo. 90 minutes to Melbourne.
