Brick by brick

The first time Michael Scarpantoni stood inside Daringa House, he was just a child. His best friend was the nephew of Ken Maxwell, who owned the house at the time. Then, it was cold and damp. Concrete had been rendered part way up the wall in an attempt to stabilise the brickwork, while the floor went up and down creating different levels where there shouldn’t be any.

Landscape designer Lesli Hewett (a descendant of the original Hewett family) took great care in designing the gardens around the two buildings.

Decades later, this personal connection, alongside the home’s historic significance as the first dwelling in McLaren Vale, would sustain Michael and brother Filippo (Fil) through the three-year project to rebuild Daringa House, quite literally, brick by brick.

Daringa’s story began in 1840, when Charles Hewett and William Colton arrived in the southern vales from the English county of Devonshire. The two farmers established Oxenberry Farm and Lower Oxenberry Farm respectively, the properties covering much of what’s now McLaren Vale.

That same year, Colton built Daringa House. Hewett’s house no longer exists, most likely destroyed by flood. But in an early settler example of waste-not-want-not, the recovered stone may then have been used to build a smaller adjacent building in around 1890. This is the building now known as Colton Cottage. The two buildings were then continuously inhabited until 1999, first by the Coltons, followed by the Semmens family and finally the Maxwell family.

The Scarpantoni’s part in Daringa’s story begins, indirectly, in 1958. In that year, Domenico Scarpantoni — Michael and Fil’s father — bought a 14-acre block of land in McLaren Vale. This block was part of the original Oxenberry Farm, explains Michael, although the large landholding had been broken up by then. The property was young Michael and Fil’s home until they moved to McLaren Flat in 1979. ‘We knew this land as kids,’ Michael says. ‘We roamed every inch of it pretty intimately.’ And so, as Domenico planted his first vines on Oxenberry land, he also cultivated a deep connection to the area in his young sons.

It’s not surprising then, that when the remaining parcel of land known as Oxenberry Farm came up for sale about twenty years ago, the Scarpantoni brothers bought it. A year later, they also bought the adjacent land that included Daringa House and Colton Cottage. This modern-day Oxenberry Farm is home to the Scarpantoni’s Oxenberry Wines label, a café and a range of accommodation options, which now include the renovated historic buildings. ‘It was a good spot,’ says Michael. ‘It had a lot of history for us. Ultimately, we always wanted to restore the houses, I just needed to think about it for twenty years first.’

Those twenty years weren’t kind to the buildings. They were largely uninhabited after the Maxwells moved out in 1999 and when the reconstruction work began in earnest in 2015, Daringa House in particular was badly dilapidated. Architect David Bennett of Bennett Design, who advised on the project, offers a blunt appraisal: ‘It would’ve been much easier to bulldoze them, you quite literally could put your finger through the wall,’ he tells me. ‘Now, they’ll go on for a long time because they’ve been given a new purpose.’

The original floors couldn’t be salvaged and were replaced with century-old jarrah floorboards salvaged from the old Clarks Shoes factory in Adelaide.

Guests are greeted with a complimentary platter, bubbles and Italian chocolates from Oxenberry Farm.

Walking down from the Oxenberry cellar door, we find that purpose now fully realised. The two humble buildings stretch out from each other on an angle, embracing the slate courtyard in a seeming welcome to guests arriving for an overnight stay. The stone walls are the original limestone accented by the rich rust-red of ironstone. Now masterfully re-pointed, they look ready to take on their next phase of life.

The aim for both buildings was to preserve as many original features as possible, overlaying history with the trappings of a modern, luxe accommodation experience. While Colton Cottage was structurally sound, Daringa required a complete rebuild from the ground up. Every brick was taken down and the floors — which lay directly on the dirt — were pulled up, to enable modern ventilation and footings to be retrofitted. The walls were rebuilt using the original bricks, cleaned and rotated 180 degrees to hide their age scars. An ever-soslight wave in the wall line was also maintained, faithfully reproducing the variation created by ground movements over the past 180 years (‘it made it fun for the guys putting the verandah on,’ says Michael).

The original floors couldn’t be salvaged and were replaced with century-old jarrah floorboards. They came from the old Clarks Shoes factory in Adelaide, bought by Michael twenty years ago (‘I thought, I’ll need them for something,’ he says). The roof, miraculously, only required reinforcing.

Entering Daringa, the front door leads into a kitchen and cosy dining nook. The kitchen’s modern farmhouse feel, like the rest of the interior, was designed by Mary Harben of GHD. The view above the expansive farmhouse sink looks out to the courtyard, the window framed by simple white subway tile. The black enamel Smeg oven commands attention, but other appliances have been discreetly hidden away to push thoughts of modern technology out of mind.

The lighting too has been designed to retain the original feel. Pendant lights have been used sparingly above the dining table and for bedside lighting, but the remaining lighting sits, unobtrusively, flush to the ceiling. The sitting room is simple but comfortable, the neutral furnishings gathered around the original red-brick fireplace. Two bedrooms are each serviced by an ensuite with bath.

Colton Cottage has kept much of the integrity of the original build without compromising on comfort or style.

All of the bathrooms have been completely renovated in crisp whites.

Delicious platters on arrival.

The smaller bedroom is Michael’s favourite — he’s tickled by the story that it was originally built for a horse, with the fireplace built for equine, rather than human, comfort. The doorway to the ensuite is the only one that’s been raised, after one too many head-knocks. Elsewhere, the original door and window frames remain.

The more compact Colton Cottage is entirely separate, offering studio accommodation. Elements of the original engineering efforts are visible, with a large, rusty bolt emphatically fixed to the wall above the doorway. Now, these features simply lend charm. Inside, the ironframed bed and small kitchenette sit on top of the original slate floor, with a full-sized bathroom waiting through the far door.

Back outside, the newly-landscaped gardens are full of English garden standards — roses, oleander, lavender and fruit trees among them — settling into their beds. In a moment of perfect serendipity, these gardens bring the Daringa story full-circle. Michael explains how, based on a friend’s recommendation, he invited a landscape designer out to Oxenberry to discuss the garden. The designer’s name? Lesli Hewett. ‘I asked her whether there was any chance she was related to the first European settlers here,’ says Michael. ‘She said she was, and that she knew her family came to McLaren Vale, but she didn’t know exactly where. I just looked at her and said ‘you’re sitting in the very spot’. Because of that, I think she put a lot of love into the garden design.’ It’s immediately clear to anyone that visits these historical buildings that love, and a whole lot of dedication, has secured their future.