Boyd Baker House > Features

The Boyd Baker House is located on 35 acres of bushland. The 3 buildings contained on the site together with all of the surrounding bushland is the subject of the highest classification of protection for heritage listing by the Heritage Council of Victoria. The buildings and their surrounds are considered of the highest and utmost importance to the State of Victoria and its cultural and architectural heritage by the Heritage Council.

The Boyd Baker House site is surrounded by nearly 200 acres of additional bushland which was donated to the State of Victoria by Dr Michael Baker in 1991.

The Boyd Dower House or the Boyd Strickland House

The Dower House is located approximately 200 metres from the Boyd Baker House and 100 metres from the Sir Roy Grounds Library.

The Dower House has a separate driveway along the track from Long Forest Road and can therefore be accessed separately to the Boyd Baker House.

Boyd Dower House

Boyd Baker House Floor Plan

The Dower House has the following facilities:

Two bedrooms with two double beds.
The main bathroom, a bathtub and overhanging shower, toilet hand basin and mirror.
The main bedroom has a walk in robe area and an outside sitting area.
The kitchen is well stocked with a stove, oven, refrigerator and dishwasher and cooking ware. Crockery is included.
There is a large bar area which also contains a washing machine and a dryer.
There is a living room/dining room in an open plan form with a plasma television and DVD system.
There is an original Bang & Oulfsen record player with original records and some DVD’s.
All linen and towels and toiletries are supplied for the house.
There is a fireplace and a number of electric heaters for the winter months.

The house is well furnished with original or reproduction mid 20th century furniture such as objects of art and paintings.

Boyd Baker House features

The Boyd Baker House has three large bedrooms with queen size beds. A fourth bedroom/library also has a large fold out Hanz Wigner daybed. Four daybeds are also contained in a number of smaller rooms off the school room.

There is a large well equipped kitchen with a dining room coming off the kitchen. The kitchen is well stocked with a stove, hot plates, refrigerator and dishwasher. All cooking utensils, crockery and glassware is supplied.
All linen and towels and toiletries are supplied for the house.
The large school room is a large breakout area which is well furnished with period mid-century furniture.
The living room is a large breakout area and has a large fireplace and a pot belly stove.
There are 3 bathrooms 2 of which have got showers and 2 of which have got bathtubs. There are 4 toilets. The Boyd Baker House sleeps up to 11 people.
Each bedroom has its own television and DVD system. The living room also has a large plasma screen and DVD system and an original Bang & Oulfsen record player with original records and DVD’s.
There are original oil and water colour paintings and screen prints fitting to the period of the house.
There is an internal courtyard area which has a large barbecue and four large extendible outdoor table and Victoria chairs and 4 butterfly chairs.
There are 6 original water tanks contained in the Boyd Baker House as well.
There are electric heaters as well as 2 open fireplaces and 2 pot belly stoves for the winter.

Paintings and other art works featured in the houses

Original paintings by Charles Blackman, Rick Amor, Sidney Nolan, Barry Humphries, John Percival, Brett Whitely and significant aboriginal works of art.

1. Original furniture featured includes rare Featherstone couches and lounge chairs, a rare Bruno Mattson lounge chair, a Tongue chair, a swan chair, rear Featherstone chairs, rare ottomans, mushroom chair, stem chair, Danish rosewood sideboards, bertoia wire chairs, butterfly chairs, Knoll couches, Danish chests of drawers, other important original Danish furniture, Hans Wegner wishbone chairs and Hans Wegner dining table, Nelson fest sitting on original Nelson stand and many many more too numerous to list.

2. Reproduction furniture includes Knoll couches, 50th anniversary rosewood eames lounge chairs and ottomans, Bertoia wire table, Nogucci coffee table, coconut chairs, marshmallow couch, numerous other Eames chairs and coffee tables and reproduction lighting.

Features of Sir Roy Grounds Library

At the time of acquisition by Peter Mitrakas the library had no electricity supply. Underground electricity supply has now been provided to the library.

The library consists of a large corridor and 2 large rooms on either side of that corridor. One room was the studio for the Bakers and remains a studio. The other room is the library and contains a number of shelves constructed by Dr Baker himself and a number of books from Dr Baker’s library. Most of the shelves are empty.

The library is ideal for additional functions or breakout areas for particular events.

The library is located approximately 100 metres from the Boyd Baker House.

Musical Instruments

There are a number of musical instruments including a set of bongo drums, tambourine, a basic keyboard, an acoustic guitar, electric base guitar with amp, electric lead guitar with amp for guests to enjoy.

Other features include external works of art such as a kaleidoscope, a sculpture, original mini tram from Wobbie’s World.

Features of Robin Boy's McClune House

Completed in 1968 Robin Boyd's McClune House is a further exploration of the courtyard house in the Australian landscape by one of Australias leading modern architects. Drawing on ideas developed at the Baker House (1966) Boyd pushed the courtyard house idea even further, stepping the house down a gently sloping bush block, and covering the whole with a huge parasol roof to provide shade from the summer sun and the cool inner courtyard as a retreat and central focus to the house.

This parasol roof design demonstrates that Boyd was well ahead of his time in environmental design as this a design strategy currently being used by a number of leading architects, notably Iredale Peterson Hook and Ken Yeang in Malaysia, as a way of cooling buildings in hot climates. Boyd used a similar roof over a roof approach in a number of other significant projects,

Despite the encroachment of suburbia on what was at the time of construction a pristine bush block, the McClune house retains it status as a classic piece of modern Australian architecture superbly integrated with its bush setting.

Sir Roy Grounds Library