THE SHRUBBERY is a remarkably beautiful property, but even more remarkable is the speed of its creation. Owners Jason Saville and Billy Nichols first saw the Exeter site three years ago. Today, its 2.4 hectares boast a five-bedroom lodge-style house surrounded by flourishing gardens, a picturesque lake, a nursery and a tree farm with 10,000 trees. Back in January 2018, all they saw was a neat two-bedroom blue house in the centre of an entirely bare paddock. Jason and Billy bought it the next day – an audacious move considering they werenât even looking to buy. âWe came [from Byron Bay] to the Highlands
for a cool break because weâd been so busy,â says Billy. âWeâd just bought a house in Byron Bay in town,â adds Jason, âand weâd moved in-weâd been there four weeks. But we moved here 14 days after buying it and in that 14 days we did all the design work for the house, the gardens and the trees.â This apparent impulse buy starts to make more sense, however, when Jason and Billy explain their motivation. They, are in fact, incredible planners who had long wanted to combine a garden design business with their own nursery and showpiece garden. That meant when they stumbled on the ideal location, they recognised it.
Jasonâs background is in hospitality, in areas including interior design, commercial cookery and landscaping. For two decades he worked in the Blue Mountains on major hotels; most recently he designed and oversaw largescale landscaping at Parklands Country Garden and Lodges in Blackheath and Lilianfels in Katoomba. Jason grew up on 18 hectares in Horsley Park where his Maltese-Australian family farmed vegetables. As a teenager heâd be up at 2am to take produce to Flemington Markets. Gardening is in the blood, he says.
Billy grew up in England where his family had a large garden and he worked part-time in a garden centre. In 2014 he moved to the Gold Coast to study journalism at Southern Cross University and a year later he met Jason. âOn weekends lâd help Jay with jobs, and l started learning from him, and when finished uni I started training in CAD (computer aided design).
âWorking on a newspaper, every day you have to prove yourself again. With garden design, thereâs an incredible sense of achievement because you get to see something progress and thereâs a final product that youâve created -and people get to enjoy it for a long period of time.â In 2017, Jason and Billy were planning to develop a property at Hawks Nest, north of Port Stephens. Jason says: âWe have 35 acres (14 hectares) on the harbour and we were about to submit a DA for a super lodge there, but a [pre-submission] meeting didnât go so well. Sol said to Billy, âLetâs go to the Highlands for a couple of days to get awayâ. We were staying at Craigieburn and saw Property Life magazine and this was on the cover. We called council and asked if we could we do a nursery, and we bought it the next day on the way home.â The concept, says Billy, was to make an interactive garden design experience. âIn presenting designs to clients weâd always found, even with elevations and good rendering, that it can be hard fur them to imagine how a gardenâs going to look, particularly with plants.â Jason has long been an admirer of famous nurseryman and landscape designer Paul Sorensen (1891-1983) and says the idea follows his philosophy. âHe built a beautiful garden in Leura and he used to bring in all the seeds and grow conifers and shrubs that he could then show his clients. Heâd take them through his garden and theyâd say, âI like this one or that oneâ. So thatâs why we did this.â Sorensen established his name in the Blue Mountains, most notably with Everglades in Leura, but in the early 1940s he had a second nursery in Berrima. In the late 1930s he designed the garden at lnvergowrie in Exeter, not far from The Shrubbery. âHe knew the Highlands was a wonderful garden area,â says Jason. âYou have to be in an area where people love their gardens to do something like this.â
THE HOUSE
The couple set to work immediately on both house and garden, project managing both. Having the existing house meant they could live in it while construction, landscaping and planting took place. The build was an extension and renovation, designed by Jason working with Blue Mountains architect Richard Starr, and plans were submitted to council within weeks. Bowral builders Shane and Billy Rofe of Rofebuild completed the build in December 2018. The owners knew exactly what they wanted and couldnât love the home more. âBecause we had lodges in mind [for Hawks Nest] thatâs what we tried to do here,â says Jason. This meant big spaces, timber and stone, some colour for warmth, a pitched roof and âa Swiss chalet feelâ upstairs. âWe didnât want a Hamptons-style house. We wanted a real masculine lodge feel. But I think while the architecture is quite masculine, the artwork is quite feminine, so itâs got a nice balance.â The home has a central kitchen/dining/living room, with a stone fireplace dividing the dining and lounge areas. The wing off the kitchen end (the original house) has two guest bedrooms, each with an en suite, and the mudroom. The wing off the lounge room end contains the master bedroom, en suite and a double garage, and upstairs, a spacious office, two more guest bedrooms and a bathroom. The floorplan is free flowing -you donât pass a doorway walking from the kitchen through the lounge and up to the office. âYouâre in amongst everything that happens all the time,â says Jason. âWe opened the lounge with just the separation of a fireplace so everyone can hear one another and interact. We like to entertain that way.â Durability was another key element. The house is well lived in, with nursery staff eating lunch together inside, a family of Jack Russells trotting about, and clients walking through to the office.
Bluestone floor tiles are used inside and out for a cohesive ârustic farmhouse feelâ, says Billy. Rosewood doors and windows, made by Mittagongâs Evalock, have been left raw. Jason says: âYou just oil them once a year with a rag, itâs easy. Itâs not like having to sand back paint every 10 years.â There are no curtains or blinds. Downstairs is painted Haymes Apollo Blue throughout, although the kitchen cabinetry is a midnight blue. Itâs an entertainerâs kitchen with plenty of bench space (including integrated Pitt gas burners), a bar and butlerâs pantry. But while the house is open, itâs also cosy in winter. The slow combustion fireplace doubles as the âengineâ of the house, heating boilers in the roof that connect to radiators in most rooms. It runs 24/7 through winter and heats the whole house. The couple had the radiators powder-coated black in England to make them a feature. In summer, thereâs air conditioning when needed, but more often they open the sliding glass doors and let the breeze blow across the reflection pool just off the lounge room. âItâs a bit of Byron,â says Billy. âWaterâs important to us.â The master bedroom is their pride and joy. Itâs huge, with picture windows facing west across the garden, and a side window framing a beautiful view of the house. âThe masterâs got to be king – thatâs how we feel when weâre designing for other people too,â says Billy. âItâs about what youâre looking at every day and creating a special space for you.â The walk-through wardrobe and en suite are also on a generous scale, and everything has been chosen with thought, including washplane basins and smoked glass shower screens. Rustic touches blend with the slick, with reclaimed timber used on some door jambs and to frame artworks commissioned from Robertson artist Jeannie Dolan.
âWe love using reclaimed things in houses or gardens,â says Billy. âAs soon as you bring timber in, it doesnât have to be just one feel – all rustic or all modern. Different finishes can tie together.â Another rustic choice was leaving the bluestone floor unsealed, except in the bathrooms. âWe love the floors in 100 and 200 year old French farmhouses, so we decided we wanted that worn look,â says Billy. âAfter the first few cocktail parties, the floor aged beautifully.â Upstairs is the loft office, with desk space for Jason, Billy and nursery manager Michelle Harelle and sofas for presentations with clients. Itâs cosy, with a pitched roof, but also open, with windows overlooking the garden. What do clients say when they walk in? âWe came for a garden and now we want a house,â says Jason.Â
THE GARDENÂ
The most important part of the homeâs design is how it relates to the garden. The two were designed together, so from every window thereâs a beautiful view or cameo. There are also wide verandahs where they sit and enjoy the sunsets. âThe gardens are all about the aspect from the house too,â says Billy. âFor us, that is key when designing a garden -looking from the inside out.â Jason adds: âWhen we go to a clientâs place, we ask to look through each of the windows. You donât want to be looking out of the bedroom at a hedge.â They started cutting earth in April 2018, a major 12 week job. âThe land is all sculpted,â says Jason, âand there are drainage pipes everywhere to collect water to run down to the lake, so it all falls perfectly. We spent the time because we donât want channelling in the land.â They worked with Josh Turner of
Turners Southern Excavations, Bowral, and had a French carpenter, Quentin Keller, living with them for six months – he built the garden shed, glasshouse and rustic benches. Bowral horticulturist Colin Blanch helped them plant out the gardens. âWe learned a lot about achieving successional planting in this area from him,â says Billy. Around the top half of the property, they planted about 10,000 trees of 120 varieties in a semicircular tree farm. Trees were grouped according to soil and aspect. âThe good basalt is higher up and the ornamentals love it,â says Billy. vvvâWhere it is a bit rockier and free draining is good for the conifers. The soil near the [existing] radiatas is a bit wetter and more acidic, which is good for the hornbeams and dogwoods.â They wanted to grow trees people canât easily buy. âIn Europe they have lots of pleached and shaped tree forms, and doing that here was a dream,â says Billy. âIâve got a lot of hornbeams Iâm making into columns and lâm topiarising conifers in designs that are hard to find.â Inside the semicircle are the gardens surrounding the house, all planted for the ownersâ enjoyment but also to showcase plants and garden styles.
Anyone who visits the nursery can wander through the gardens, getting ideas for plants and design. The plan is to introduce an app that people can download so they can scan a QR code next to any plant that catches their eye. They will then be able to see if itâs available in the nursery. Most visitors start their walk at a square formal lawn surrounded by crab apples, liquorice plant, lavender, viburnum and shastas. A Portuguese laurel hedge-lined walk leads to a large circular formal garden with a fountain at its centre. The lawn is surrounded by mass planted perennials and roses, including Juliaâs Rosesâ as standards, underplanted with âClaire Austinsâ. âThere are roses in flower for about nine months of the year,â says Jason. Other parts of the garden include a dry garden, a white garden, a potage garden and a rambling cottage garden. Eventually hedging and trees will grow so that most sections are slightly hidden from each other, allowing for a âgarden with revealsâ. A trefoil-shaped lake is the star feature, but doesnât come into view until you walk around the house. âWe love big areas and big impact,â says Jason. Eventually, birches will reflect on its surface and meadow planting will surround it. âYou wonât be able to tell we made it.â They mention two other gardening philosophies: they plant so thereâs always something flowering and something coming into flower; and they move anything that isnât working. âThink of plants like furniture,â says Billy. âYou can always put them in a different place and see if they work better; and we have good soil variants here.â They have had one big setback. The plan is to propagate much of what they sell, and they were well under way last summer, but then came the fires.
They had to evacuate and couldnât water for four days and lost all their stock. âWe lost a year and a half of work,â says Jason. âIL took a week for three of us to empty all of the pots.â Theyâve since ordered in nursery stock, but in a year they will have their own stock to sell.
âThis is all about giving people ideas,â says Billy. âOften when people look at a plant in a nursery, they canât really envisage what itâs going to look like in their garden. Here, itâs almost like an interior store experience. When you go into Suzie Anderson [in Moss Vale] and see a lounge, you see it in a lounge
Setting and can imagine how itâs going to look in your house.â
 âWeâre like the Suzie Anderson of gardens,â continues Jason with a laugh. âWeâre trying to show people how plants could look in their garden.â
They understand many people donât have a designerâs mind – few could have imagined how The Shrubbery might look on that first day in an almost empty paddock. But most people appreciate a thriving garden once they see it. Now everyone can appreciate the results of their vision.
