Harvest Home Avenel

Harvest Home Avenel
A Regional Destination Venue, Restored and Reimagined
Curated Accommodation, Events, Restaurant and Cafe Bar

“I took a heritage building down to its bare bones and turned it into a destination people traveled specifically to find.”

Harvest Home Avenel had sat empty for a couple of years, and it had been nearly two decades since its original heyday. There was no business to step into. No suppliers, no staff, no guest list, no systems. I took on a building down to its bare bones and a garden that was largely dead, and built the entire business from nothing, turning it into a destination venue, the kind of place people made a point of travelling to.

The concept was built around a feeling I chased in my final years living in Melbourne. I'd grown up regionally, but had spent years living and working in cities, Melbourne, Sydney and overseas, before I found myself constantly drawn back out to small rural towns, seeking out the cafes and restaurants that felt like real discoveries. Every part of the experience design was considered, built to create that same feeling of uncovering something special.

The restoration itself was a project in its own right, one I got to take on alongside my father, a builder, and a team of local tradespeople who wanted to see the town's heart beating again.

The build out was staged and resourceful rather than done all at once. We opened the bar first, had a chef and full food service running by the new year, and added accommodation the following year, working with what we had and getting the grounds ready in time for weddings.

From there I designed and delivered the full concept, built around weddings, events and accommodation, with a restaurant, cafe and a pool rounding out the offering. From the street, it was hard to imagine what sat behind the walls and through the gates. Guests would walk through the building and out into the gardens, and you could see it hit them, that moment of realising what they had actually found. I loved seeing that reaction, people telling us it was a hidden gem they couldn't wait to tell their friends about, often after being told by someone else that they had to see it for themselves.

We started with nothing. I sourced every detail myself, from beautiful glassware, which became something I was known for, to curating each space and the way it flowed, so there was something to discover as you journeyed through the property. I designed the menus and event packages, developed the branding and visual identity, and led all venue management, promotion and marketing myself.

Day to day, I led the team, managed staffing, hiring and training across a team that fluctuated seasonally, and ran all commercial, operational, financial and marketing functions personally, in a lean, self directed structure. That included procurement and ordering, running several separate booking systems across accommodation and restaurant, kitchen operations, supplier relationships, event delivery and guest experience, across a business with genuine complexity.

Across those six years the venue delivered hundreds of weddings and events, and built a reputation strong enough that guests travelled specifically to be there. I sold the business over two years ago, and I still constantly bump into people who reminisce about it, memories we all made together, and I feel lucky to have shared that time with so many people.

2018 - 2024