DESIGN CONCEPT:

Surrounded by an iconic Australian bush landscape, the Boyd Baker House and the Boyd Dower House are Robin Boyd’s intelligent and sensitive response to the unique site presented to him by University of Melbourne mathematician, Dr Michael Baker, in 1964.

These deceptively simple houses have been described as ‘precious pieces of the state’s heritage’, with the Boyd Baker House ‘acknowledged as one of Australia’s most important post war houses’ by Melbourne University professor of architecture Philip Goad.

A low pyramidal roof extended to cover an encircling verandah-cum-circulation space and rested on 12 stone cylinders, containing water tanks, tool sheds and a cubby hole. The spaces created by the curved walls provided for cars, a workshop and a play area, eliminating any visual detritus which might scar the rural landscape.

Service rooms and children´s cubicles were strung around a central courtyard. In the outer range of rooms were a schoolroom (in the best pioneer tradition), a library and a massive living hall, with an inner glass wall giving access to a courtyard planted with exotics and screened against insects.

After Boyd’s death in 1971, the Baker family commissioned his former business partner Roy Grounds to design the Library to the compound in 1979.


HERITAGE:

The Boyd Baker House group, with buildings designed by prominent Australian architects Robin Boyd and Roy Grounds, has been added to the Victorian Heritage Register.

The Boyd Baker House (1966), the Boyd Dower House (1968) and the Library built in the 1970s, will now receive the highest level of heritage protection in Victoria.


FEATURES:

The Boyd Baker House contains 5 bedrooms, 3 double and 2 single, extensive interior and exterior living spaces, a small but serviceable kitchen and 4 bathrooms of varying sizes.

The property sleeps 14 guests total, but the houses can be rented separately.

The properties are filled with midcentury furniture and Australian art.


LOCATION:

Surrounded by the Long Forest Conservation Reserve near Bacchus Marsh, approximately 45 mins from Melbourne’s CBD

RATES:

Available for short term hire:

Boyd Baker House ($3000PW / $1800 FOR 3 DAYS)
Boyd Dower House ($1500PW / $1000 FOR 3 DAYS)

POA for less than 3 days