A labour of love: Tasmanian dream home brings globetrotters' vision to life

It’s a project worthy of an episode of the TV series Grand Designs. A young couple, having worked and travelled extensively overseas for several years in the 1970s, return to Australia set on building their dream abode.

They bring home with them a scrapbook they’ve compiled – crammed with ideas and photographs from the places they’ve been, including Papua New Guinea, various south-east Asian countries and the United States – for the bespoke house they imagine for themselves “now and into the future”.

The couple, working in education, stumble on a lush green bush eyrie with seriously enviable bucolic views overlooking Tasmania’s Tamar River, a short 20-minute scenic scoot north of Launceston.

Having secured an untouched 4.9-hectare block overgrown with blackberries and hawthorn, they build a multi-level, U-shaped house, seemingly growing organically out of a grassy knoll, in three stages over the next 20 years, from 1985 to 2006.

Arguably, it’s worth a second episode. Cue host Kevin McCloud. “We were working hard and needed a place to get away,” they say. “A sanctuary.”

While the owners enlisted the help of architect-builder Peter Greiner, who assisted them with the technical side – fiddly things like volumes, proportion and dimensions – the modern design was completely that of the owners, one of whom gave up work to manage the project.

Most spectacular (and challenging) was their bold idea of twin opposing curves, emerging from the earth to form a rough parabola. As geographers, the couple was inspired by barchans, the crescent-shaped desert sand dunes.

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They also dug into their little scrapbook for inspiration. “We gave our design to the architect to make it work,” they say, adding whimsically: “It needed skyhooks.”

Dubbed Sky Island for its elevation and isolation, the residence was also designed to fit what they call “the seasons of our life” – their habits, likes and dislikes, and the practical side of everyday living.

This resulted in big, breezy rooms and floor-to-ceiling spans of glazing capturing the panorama of wide-open skies, the meandering, boat-filled waterway, a historic church, native forest and landscaped gardens.

It’s somewhat paradoxical, given the property is hidden away at the end of a one-kilometre private road, in keeping with the owners’ desire for privacy.

The house also features a main bedroom – with a spacious walk-in wardrobe and en suite incorporating a bay-window spa bath – a gym and laundry, as well as a huge living room with raised dining platform, all curved around a calming, Japanese-styled courtyard garden.

Another highlight is the chandelier the couple handcrafted from capiz shells they brought back from the Philippines. It hangs through the centre of a spiral staircase – which they also made, inspired by a Singapore hotel – which leads to an upstairs loft-like studio/home office.

The lower level is the final stage of their build: double garage, cellar and self-contained flat, sitting under a north-facing deck.

It’s not only the house that astounds. The couple has spent years landscaping the property, creating flower, vegetable and rock gardens, fruit and nut orchards and fishponds. They also run miniature horses and previously had sheep and goats.

SOLD - $1,854,000

203 Rosevears Drive, Rosevears TAS 7277

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But they stress the place still promises much more. Surrounded by vineyards, the property is ideal to plant your own. Or build the gazebo they never got to, halfway down the hill.

“It’s been marvellous but each season needs different things,” they say. “There’s still a lot of directions new owners can take the property.”

Andrew Macdonald of Bushby Property is accepting overs over $1.7 million.