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Photographer Jamie Green and creative consultant Lisa Green moved from Melbourne to the Byron Bay area 10 years ago, with plans of starting a family and building their dream home.
Their budget didn’t allow for the latter in those early years, but the couple eventually bought a house in Suffolk Park, and were able to renovate it for sale, freeing up finances to build the bespoke house they’d always envisioned.
In a case of the stars aligning, the agent who appraised their house was selling an idyllic empty block of land in Newrybar.
‘He said I have this block on Broken Head Road going for auction this week and it’s in your budget!’ recalls Jamie.
‘Broken Head Road was one of our dream roads… It connects the hinterland with the beach, it’s one of the highest points, and only a six minute drive to Broken Head Beach.
‘It has all these little fruit and veggie stores outside peoples homes, a tiny cute public school, horses, cows and rolling hills … What more could you want!’
The family had already planned an eight-month stint in France, so after purchasing the land, they headed off to Paris with their daughter Gigi (now 4).
They were soon in touch with a local architect, Carole Huard at Nod Architecture, and builder Nicholas Jouin at Permastructure, who both happened to be French, and the inspiration for the home quickly fell into place.
The vision was a boutique farmhouse — somewhere that would look equally at home in Provence or the Byron hinterland — with French doors spilling out to a blossoming garden.
Lisa and Jamie were also keen to emulate the textured walls commonly found in Moroccan architecture.
‘We had both spent a fair bit of time in Morocco and stayed in many places built out of mudbrick and render,’ explains Jamie. ‘There is just something about the depth of the walls over there that gives you such a nice feeling — like a building giving you a warm hug.’
They built with hempcrete (a material made with the stem of a hemp plant, combined with lime binder and water) to achieve this look, complemented by a limestone render applied inside and out.
‘The product is fire and mould resistant, a great insulator, the acoustics are incredible, and it ticked the box of that warm hug feeling we wanted,’ says Jamie.
The addition of a farmhouse sink, pale green accents (Dulux Pale Eucalypt), brushed brass hardware, and pleated curtains that sway in the breeze instil a romantic feel to the interiors.
After moving into the home in mid 2023, Jamie turned his attention to establishing the garden on the almost three-acre block.
‘I started out with really simple and cheap ways to mass plant using sunflowers and buckwheat to do huge sections of flowers on the property,’ he says. ‘We eventually made our flower patch — it’s about 20 x 20 metres. I’m lucky I have some help with this now from Tanya at Oh Flora Studio who took over the patch about eight months ago, and it now grows to her heart’s content.’
The emu seen wandering the grounds in these images was a briefly adopted pet, named Ice Cream Sprinkles by Gigi.
‘It just turned up one day (we assume it was someone’s pet that escaped). No one claimed him and he just stuck around!’ says Jamie.
‘It was a pretty special time; we fed him and he got to know us pretty well.
‘Three months later, the local wildlife service in Ballina took him to a safer wildlife sanctuary where he could be with other emus and not so close to main roads. We miss him but grateful we had the encounter.’
The house build came together relatively quickly over six months, but it wasn’t without its challenges and complications.
Long story short, Jamie and Lisa were under the impression the house didn’t require council approval, as it will be used long term as a rural outbuilding, not the primary residence.
‘It would never be a long-term home as such, but we could live in it for the meantime — or so we thought,’ says Jamie.
‘Halfway through the build we applied to put our septic in, and the council said “Hey wait, what are you building?” We told them and they said you can’t do that — the rural outbuilding rule is only if you are running a farm, and your block is too small to farm.’
The build was allowed to continue, but a retrospective ruling to make it a secondary dwelling took over 12 months to approve, causing issues with financing.
‘About 75 per cent of the way through we completely ran out of money… and because the council wouldn’t approve the building, the banks wouldn’t value what we had done,’ says Jamie.
‘Throw interest rates jumping up every time you blinked you could say our dream started to get a tad stressful!
‘Luckily our builder was so amazing and kept going… and we begged and borrowed to get it done.’
The total cost for the two-bedroom house build was about $450,000 including all council fees, architecture power, and plumbing.
With council approval now under control, Jamie and Lisa have big plans to eventually expand the property to better suit life with Gigi and Otis (9 months).
‘We will be able to unlock funds to finish off some hardscaping, along with a big greenhouse, more areas for flowers, and maybe even a vineyard!’ Jamie says.
It’s hard to imagine an even more enchanting property, but watch this space!
