This Shoreham house by Wolveridge Architects blurs the line between the natural and built worlds

The Farm sounds about as prosaic a property appellation as there is, but the pithy signifier perfectly describes the elegant simplicity of Australian design on radiant display against this stunning Shoreham setting.

Wolveridge Architects’ house, facing Western Port, responds to its environment in the most elemental of ways. At the end of a long, dipping drive fringed in eucalypt and paddocks, there’s a clearing and a singular sight. A large timber house stands, framed by a tufty green and stone-work garden. Encountered from this direction, it almost feels as though you have happened upon a cabin in the woods – albeit a large and quite imposing one – nevertheless, there’s a storybook feel to the reveal here that mesmerises.

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“Arriving here is a full process of meandering and discovery,” says principal architect Jerry Wolveridge. “You descend into the land and emerge where a thicket of gorgeous gums opens up. The house is chunky and muscular, but there is a feeling that it fits, that it somehow might have always been there.”

The neat alchemy that takes a substantial footprint and renders it almost quiet is central to the architect’s practice. Internal space is always linked to a view of the surrounds, and although this house looks down across pastures to the stripe of blue waters beyond, the close-up views are important too.

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515 Tucks Road, Shoreham VIC 3916

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“It’s all about how it sits in the landscape no matter how big it is,” says Wolveridge. “That’s a two-way thing. When you’re inside looking out along the hallway, for example, to an amazing tree metres away, that’s what makes a house feel like it belongs.”

The structure has presence, in the true sense of the word, a broad span of timber across two levels and changing planes – the top section horizontal, the bottom vertical and both held within a battened grid.

No windows appear on this entry side; the wooden face gains relief only from the recessed front door and the high, open mid-section that reveals the brilliant internal courtyard.

There’s an instant atmosphere of sanctuary; those tall timbers, inscrutable and impenetrable, have a fortress-type energy. The crowning touch here is genius – an inverted roofline gives the entire profile a lightness, its rising edges and central fall like a wing on an upswing to the sky. Beautiful, graceful, defining.

“The house needed a sense of delicacy,” Wolveridge says. “The inverted roof has the simple elegance of something come to rest lightly on top.”

Inside, while the natural hardwoods continue to reign supreme, glazing, open space, connection and flow combine to produce interiors of rare, easy beauty.

The internal courtyard just beyond the entry opens the house to a more composed, tranquil green space, contrasting with the wildness of the coastal environment outside the high walls.

Pale stone floors glow under the natural light and track through to the splendid kitchen-living-dining area along the northerly edge.

A majestic Dromana granite fireplace is the focal point of a living area abundant in showstoppers – the soaring timber ceiling and the walls of glass looking across deep decks and the sublime pool to the wide ribbon of Western Port blue – are but a few.

While the volume is epic, the house contains excess via judicious material selection that creates an atmosphere of intimacy – a deft deepening of timber tone, tactile, pad-about floor stone, the exquisite Pilbara green dolomite marble sparingly, stunningly applied.

Then there is what Wolveridge calls the ‘asymmetrical’ elements here. That roofline creates what are essentially two levels, that variously check or expand space. “There are apertures that seem potentially random, peculiarities, a reluctance to make everything perfect.” In this way the house comes alive with possibility – views are caught, light filtered, life lived inside and out.

There are five bedrooms, the rake of the roof accommodating three upstairs, each with en suites and sharing a rangy rumpus area. Two sumptuous suites sit on the ground level.

Step out onto the broad decks, and the pool and spa seem to float off into the greenery. Water is everywhere here, with a stretch of Stony Creek forming the north-easterly border of the 20-plus hectares.

A substantial farm shed sits across a broad forecourt from the house proper, while extensive livestock infrastructure and a comprehensive array of sustainable features – solar, battery, water storage – create a property with genuine farming credentials.

This is an exceptional place where the natural world intersects with the built environment –  the rare result is a splendid collaboration.