Explore Rosedale Farm, the incredible 1877 estate interior stylist Steve Cordony calls home

Cradled in an emerald valley among the paddocks and rolling hills of the NSW Central Tablelands, the breathtakingly beautiful Rosedale Farm awaits.

Primed to bewitch all who make their way up its meandering gravel driveway, the restored c1877 homestead and its manicured gardens brim with an intoxicating sense of romance.

That’s entirely fitting. For owners and long-term partners Steve Cordony – one of Australia’s best-known interior stylists – and Michael Booth, Rosedale Farm has been a true labour of love for the past six years.

Having searched for three-and-a-half years for a rural property to call their own, they were immediately attracted to the 49-hectare property near Orange when they first passed through its gates in May 2017.

“When we saw the house, it seemed perfectly perched at the bottom of this valley and surrounded by trees that Colin and Patricia – the previous owners who had it for 50 years – had planted all those years ago,” Cordony says.

“There were beautiful poplars, gorgeous oaks, English elms and various evergreens. It felt so enchanting, with the setting, the long driveway and the lake it overlooks.”

That said, the garden and primary eight-bedroom house were ripe for renewal – a challenge that held exhilarating promise to Cordony and Booth from the outset.

Indeed, the creative wheels were already in motion on day one.

“The conversation quickly shifted from ‘What do you think?’ to planning mode and ‘What are we going to do first?’ ” Cordony recalls with a smile. “That was the tell-tale sign it was meant to be.

“The house and garden were well maintained, but both definitely needed some love. We wanted to bring them back to their former glory.”

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While passionate green-thumb Booth took charge of the grounds, Cordony got to work on the main house.

“It was this perfect symbiosis of indoors and outdoors,” he says, adding: “The project just got bigger and bigger.

“Everything inside was redone – replumbed, rewired, repainted, with a new kitchen and bathrooms and even new ceilings in some areas.”

When it came to the decor, Cordony allowed his imagination to take full flight. Certainly, there was the freedom that came with being his own client.

“When I first saw the Georgian-style house with its soaring 3.6-metre ceiling heights, I knew what I was going to do with it,” he says. “I wanted a contemporary take on a European-style home.”

Expanses of glass now draw daylight into the domains and provide verdant vistas, with each room taking on a decorative personality.

There’s the luminous living room, the showstopper kitchen – with heavily veined arabescato vagli marble benchtops and moody-hued shaker cabinetry with brass detailing – and the expansive main bedroom, which is three rooms converted into one, with a luxe French-hotel-style en suite.

Beckoning you to the interior is a wraparound verandah dripping with fragrant wisteria – a place for both solitude and entertaining.

“It’s like you’re in your own little oasis,” Cordony says. “The interiors are really dictated by the outside, where the setting changes all the time.

“The garden looks different from season to season and is constantly evolving, which is part of its charm.”

As is his signature, Cordony has created a tantalising exchange between past and present with an eclectic composition of old and new furnishings.

“I scoured lots of antique stores, but then I also have some contemporary pieces,” he says. “That mix is what defines my style, giving the property a fresh take.”

Providing a distinct sense of cohesiveness throughout is a monochromatic base palette.

“It allows you to layer lots of different textures and materials, and also accent with different colours,” Cordony says.

“I’ve brought in texture through the marble benchtops, timber floors, brass tapware and handles, and vintage Moroccan and antique Chinese Peking rugs.

“A home should always be moving and evolving, and you can do that when you have a really good base to work with.”

Joyfully, too, there are touches of whimsy, most notably in the dining room where the fantastical and scenic Iksel D-Dream wallpaper from Boyac is a delightful talking point among guests.

“The wallpaper always starts the conversation around the dinner table,” Cordony says. “But why I love it so much is that it makes you feel as though you’re enveloped in a 360-degree panorama of trees. That’s how I feel when I’m out in the garden.”

Cordony’s work, however, was far from done with the transformation of the main residence.

“Then we moved on to the second building,” he says. “We completely redid that, as well as the old outhouses and the hay sheds that all had beautiful bones.

“We [turned] them into what is now the orangery, pool house and a beautiful poultry house.”

Rosedale Farm is also home to a veritable menagerie of creatures, including ostriches Mariah and Tanaka, shire horses Ebony and Brave, geese, white peacocks, cows, and Cordony and Booth’s beloved English springer spaniel, Bedford.

“For some reason, all of our animals are black and white, except for a camel … and some macaw birds which definitely don’t fit the monochromatic brief!” Cordony laughs. 

More recently, the old servants’ quarters have been transformed into two “luxe Italian-country-style” guesthouses for farm-stay visitors – one and two-bedroom suites with kitchenettes, which can be booked through Airbnb or rosedalefarm.net.au.

“When people come to visit, they say Rosedale Farm has a sense of soul,” Cordony says. And that makes it a magical place indeed.