The Walker family home at Gillespie, 40 kilometres south east of Blackall, is one of the district’s oldest homesteads.
Made of cypress pine, it was built in 1885 as the headquarters for Northampton Downs, taken up in 1861 by pioneer pastoralist Ernest Davies.
Its history, combined with the design flair of owners, has seen it feature in the pages of the Queensland Country Life in earlier years - a yellowing newspaper clipping from the 1960s declares that “Northampton is no longer a box”.
Thanks to the ministrations of Alec and Georgina Walker, who purchased the property from Brisbane-based grazier and philanthropist Harold Rubin, a rambling homestead was transformed into the “modern counterpart of a comfortable country residence”, according to the article.
It had been a single wall building of four large draughty rooms, surrounded on three sides by a wide verandah.
A hall ran the length of the house and three small rooms occupied the space at the back of the house.
The Walkers spent two years on the renovation, taking out several walls and remodelling verandahs, and adding a new wing, revealing a building that bore little resemblance to the original.
Fifty years later, it’s still a design that serves Peta Walker and her children Cherie and Alex well.
More than that, it’s the place where their husband and father Butch grew up.
He died in an accident fighting a bushfire on the property three years ago but his memory is very much alive in the homestead.
One of Peta’s favourite rooms is the open plan lounge room, where the double-sided fireplace is a striking feature.
“It’s evolved as different families have taken up residence,” Peta explained. “It’s had lots of use over the years with extended family entertaining.”
Another of the room’s features are the super-comfy antique wing chairs, which Butch and Peta transformed from maroon velour to soft brown leather at a furniture restoration workshop in Blackall.
Peta said they had tried to use their own leather but it wasn’t possible, and so they were clad in leather from New Zealand.
“I guess I’d say the room is a mix of old and modern,” she said. “It all seems to work together.”
Thanks to allergies, the homestead’s woollen carpet was taken up and floors were polished instead.
“I guess I prefer less than more,” Peta said. “The curtains are gone too. I don’t like to close a house up. I love to see out.”
One of the rooms that allows that outdoor living interface is the garden lounge - “down the front” in the family parlance - where white wicker furniture is the perfect place to relax and look over the grassy green lawns and tennis court.
In seasons like those being endured in the west at the moment, the importance of that oasis can’t be underestimated.
A special family photo
The historic fireplace that divides the lounge-dining room at Gillespie is home to a special photograph loved by all the family.
Once the Queensland coordinator for Australia’s Open Garden scheme, Kim Woods Rabbidge took the eye-catching black and white image when the Walkers’ extensive garden was part of an open day in 2011.
It was taken about 12 months before Butch’s accident, when he was showing Kim around and sharing his love of the land with her.
The simple but striking image is a hand cupping a fluffy collection of Buffel grass seeds.
It was the photograph chosen for the cover of the order of service at Butch’s funeral.
“It’s special to all of us,” Peta said. “It embraces what Butch was all about. It’s like holding gold in your hand.”
Beefwood bar
It was once an empty verandah, gauzed in, but it now oozes warmth and conviviality.
The TV/bar room at Gillespie was created when the Walker family decided to close it in, using cypress pine from an old ceiling, milled nearby at Tambo.
“It was created out of nothing,” Peta said. “I like it because we made it ourselves..”
The bar itself is made out of dead finish and beefwood timbers, all rich and glowing, and cut personally by Butch.
The cypress pine in other parts of the house, predominantly the floorboards, has been showing the effects of drought.
It’s been so dry that knots in the timber have been falling out in recent months as they shrink.
Kitchen creations
Many old bush homesteads were built with the kitchen down a walkway away from the main house, partly to keep the main house cool and partly to prevent any fires from the wood stove from engulfing the whole building complex.
The kitchen at Northampton Downs was no exception and it’s been preserved to this day, undergoing a number of reincarnations as it fits new demands.
Cherie and Alec spent plenty a long hour doing distance education lessons there before going away to boarding school, whereupon Peta turned it into her craft room and took up screen printing.
Like many a spare room, it also served a purpose as a store room, but with a few wet days over the Christmas break the family has transformed it into a studio.
Both Cherie and Alec are talented creators - Cherie majored in creative design at university and studied fashion at TAFE before starting her Alexis Dawn clothing label and opening a shop off James Street in Fortitude Valley, and Alec is making a name for himself in the world of photography.
He sees it as a good way to provide context to bush lifestyles on social media, but is also beginning to sell prints to customers through his Butch Walker Photography website.
AuctionsPlus is his latest client.
“Dad was a keen amateur and I found one of his SLRs,” he said. “It started out as something to do while walking cattle, and now I take a camera with me everywhere. You never know when those really good photos are going to occur.”
Cherie’s website is off-air for the moment as she figures out where she wants to go with it now that she’s moved back home, but she’s keen to go back to her fine arts studies and give painting another go.
Stand by for tasty things to emerge from the building that once served up delicious meals.
