Vintage House

Design concept

The brief

Country living, considered.

Vintage House is a design concept for a contemporary country home in the Hunter Valley — one of Australia's great wine regions. The brief was to create a home that belongs to its rural setting without nostalgia: no mock heritage, no pastiche.

The design is disciplined and horizontal, sitting low in the landscape with a north-facing living zone that looks across open country. The material palette is drawn from the site itself — earthy renders, steel roofing, and timber battens that weather with the seasons.

From the aerial, the house reads as a simple composed form on a generous rural block — exactly what it is.

Design story

Grown from the land.

Designing a house in wine country demands restraint. The landscape is the main event — the rolling hills, the vine rows, the quality of afternoon light in autumn. A good country house doesn't compete with that; it frames it.

Vintage House is designed to be discovered rather than announced. The entry sequence moves through the landscape before arriving at the door. Inside, the main living spaces face north across open country, with the kitchen at the centre where it belongs.