David and Yuge Bromley came across their Hepburn Springs abode about eight years ago. A well-known trucking family had owned it for three generations previously, and it happened to be for sale at the perfect time when the Bromleys were selling their old property – just up the road!
Renovation aficionados, David and Yuge’s other projects range from a Byron Bay haven, a showroom in Melbourne’s iconic Block Arcade, and their former family residence. So it’s no surprise they managed to entirely transform the California Bungalow, a converted 1940’s shed and studio into their dream home.
‘We are renovators usually, not builders, working with the essence and existing buildings and the already set up pathways and movements of the previous owners,’ David says.
The creative couple have lined the walls and ceilings with custom Bromley wallpaper and detailed the interiors with recycled timbers, industrial and vintage components collected from around the world. Meanwhile, the kitchen features copper tapware and Bromley bronze-sculpted sinks. Each room a patchwork of textures and styles, different from the next.
The Bromleys also highlight intricate additions such as woodwork by a ‘very well regarded engraver from Japan, stunning rug samples from Turkey’ and ‘industrial printing drawers from Eastern Europe’.
‘Being garden mad though, we have never stopped planting and landscaping in the whole time we have been here,’ David adds.
In fact, they imagined growing old amongst the lush 7109sq m block, with mature olive and pine trees, a fruit orchard and views over Wombat Forest. But with their three children (Wen, Bei and Jimmy) ‘growing like weeds,’ their bull mastiff and their daughter coming to live with them, they knew they needed to find something bigger. Otherwise, they would have ‘never have parted with it’.
‘We feel like it’s its own island… When you are there it envelopes you. [It’s a] place with a nurturing quality, its been a very happy place to be.’
21 – 25 Main Road, Hepburn Springs, is listed with Kim McQueen at McQueen Real Estate Daylseford and expressions of interest will close on Tuesday May 17. Take a look at the full listing.
