tropical daylesford

rainy days and humid weather has helped our garden grow this spring and summer with the gum trees towering now and the wattles stretching wide. we ate recently at the perfect drop and blissed out on the lamb three ways and the lovely service from beautiful brigit. soon to be zahalka next door is in the planning and we'll keep you in the loop, meanwhile enjoy the green summer and step lightly over the copperheads

zahalka world press release

     Interior Designer and Stylist Rachael Leslie was inspired to name her newly constructed and impeccably styled country retreat after a great Australian photographer. Zahalka House, hidden in a delicious stretch of Daylesford countryside, was named in homage to Sydney-based photographer Anne Zahalka, whose Iconic work features throughout Australia's major galleries.

      Leslie’s co-stylist Jasmine Salomon was captivated by Zahalka’s imagery after viewing her major retrospective exhibition which toured nationally in 2008. Salomon realised she had stumbled upon a namesake for the art conscious and eccentric space she was assisting Leslie to create, and the name stuck.

      Leslie's hand collected interior pieces and carefully considered approach to detail has resulted in the creation of a home that is warm, inspiring and offers guests the sense of magic one can only experience when staying at a lived in, culturally aware environment. This is the kind of pad you’d retreat to when creative block sets in and you needed an oasis that provided New Yorker mags to distract you or upmarket cooking and art books to inspire you. It is the home you always wished you owned, the sense of balance you wished you could create, with that lived- in feeling where everything just works.  And it’s that sense of home that is so often commented upon by visitors.

By late 2008, when Zahalka house was truly established and beginning to garner a name in a town where the stakes in stylish accommodation are high, Leslie and Salomon attended Anne Zahalka’s private gallery showing at Arc 1. They had the opportunity to talk with the artist about her work, and also about the property named in her honour and she was, well, honoured! 

A weekend at the retreat was offered to Zahalka to lend weight to the connection between her name and this space. The described experience, of a trip to beautiful countryside with long drawn baths in the evening and crisp walks into the Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens in the morning, did not disappoint Zahalka. But mostly, she was impressed by the vision of this home, and by the way the slow burn approach to layout, style, function and art was so effortlessly combined. 

As the owner of her own fabulously eclectic bed and breakfast ‘Australia Street Guest House’ in Sydney’s Newtown,  Anne Zahalka knew good style and functionality when she hit upon the Daylesford retreat.  Zahalka, Leslie and Salomon are now linked in more ways than just a name, and their friendship based on art and good times continues to bloom. Leslie has since worked with Zahalka on her latest short films and a gift to the house from the artist to the artists- the haunting print ' Deer Hunter' is soon to feature at Zahalka House. (pictured here  in Rachael Leslie's St Kilda home)

lazy winter days

aaaaaah winter........ not much to do in the cold and blustery weather but to lie in late, read the paper, have a big bath and whip somebody's proverbial at scrabble, now renamed squabble....
recent guest and photographer amanda from blog 'brisbane a la mode' wrote a lovely blurb about her stay,
see - http://brisbanealamode.blogspot.com/2010/08/stay-little-getaway-to-daylesford.html


we love it too, though I have been busy in smellbourne practicing drumming, we have managed to sneak in a few nights away in the hills.

Zahalka house seems to have adopted a neighbourhood cat, a little tortoiseshell moggie who was secretly stowing away on the beds at night having worked out that we'd left the catflap unlocked! Now relegated to outdoors, she still visits the guests each weekend and has stolen some hearts along the way.

While you're here, check out Devon's 'Perfect Drop' wine bar, good local wines and awarded just this week by the good food guide, a big chef's hat for it's food and service... yay devon! love your work.....

come and enjoy the crisp mornings, the snow, the slow cooked meals at the farmers arms and our lovely country hospitality.... oh, and moggie.....

sugar and spice

ah, a spice drawer! for all the foodies we have loved before, we have stocked one of the kitchen drawers with loads of yummy things to cook with. After Anne Zahalka came to stay with her family, her husband Collie, cook extarordinaire and keen as mustard curry maker suggested that this might be a nice pairing to the many fresh herbs already available in the garden. et viola!   It's been a while since the last feast, we're due for another. We had a beautiful gathering at the end of the year with local and melbourne family where we shared sardines on toast with accompaniments made from Zahalka and Meg's garden herbs (see link to land of meg on our fave links), slow braised lamb neck with yogurt and then a fab tart that Mim made with rhubarb from David Bromley's garden. yummo!

still standing

jasmine, my illustrious business partner and i have been busy styling a beautiful home in Hampton- owner Steph stayed at Zahalka with her gal pals for a wild weekend, she won the meat tray raffle at the farmer's arms, raided 'the Mill' for all things Zahalkaesque and declared that she wanted to bring a bit of the magic and style we've created there into her home too. We spent weeks looting for collanders and tram banners, vintage grain sacks and old armoires.....Her bedroom is now frenchy and sophisticated and gorgeous, loungeroom to follow in a more classic country style....we'll put some pics up soon!

meanwhile, I came up a few weeks ago to wet down the house and do the tennis balls in the gutter thing, we could see the red of the sky to the east and from nearby wombat hill, could see the fires, not far at muskvale, another just a k or so away at Jubilee lake.

As the fires were brought under control, a night was spent restyling our middle room. Now 'the white room', we've paired back all the colour and replaced our superheroes and bright indian embroidery with glass and silver relics and lots more white stuff.....more ethereal and light now, a very peaceful room to escape to.......

Our vegie garden is merely a weed garden at the moment but hope to get it back up and running for winter, meanwhile we thank you all for watering the potplants and taking such lovely care of Zahalka.......

city escape

brrrrrrrrrrrrrr Amber and the Kids and myself got out of town for the weekend and came up to the lovely Zahalka for some TIME OUT! The kids ran amok on cornish hill and we weeded a good deal of the vegie garden and planted peas and the left over tomatoes that were still having a go at it even through these cold months. We have a NEW TABLE! those who come back again and agian will appreciate that out beautiful old country pine table is now a few feet longer and wider, thus accommodating more food and wine and friends. Mark from Lot 19 in Castlemaine, and Jasmin and Adrian, out dear toy making friends from Daylesford cam and shared a roast lamb around the new family table and a good hoot was had by all. It snowed last week, just for an hour or so, tho we were in melbourne and missed it! Another homebound meal at the Farmer's Arms before we drove home. Amber feasted on more roast lamb, which came with the most delish eggplant mush, and I pushed most of my western plains pork to the side, too fatty, unrendered, too rich for tired me.Hoping to plant out some cumquats in our new old wine barrels, stay tuned Zahalka friends, and thanks for your ongoing gloriously happy feedback. x rach and rider

fine dining

mmmm a kitchen to truly revel and unwind in is our zahalka galley. You'll find spanish casseroles, french iron pots, tapas plates and japanese platters, old wooden chopping boards and french monogrammed napkins. Loads of glass ware, tho someone did point out there were no champagne galsses. hmmmmm, that's because I developed a habit in france of always drinking form a glass tumbler and now it wouldn't even occur to me to use anything else! shall rectify this soon zahalka friends. If you're lucky I'll have remembered to sharpen the knife and won't have borrowed too many wierd things for my styling jobs in Melbourne. Someone asked if we had a coffee machine. (we do have an espresso stove top thingy and a plunger) Maybe one day, but NOTHING beats sitting in Cliffy's on a sunday and having one of the girls make you a flat white while you RELAX and READ the paper. They also cook for you, the best local eggs and bacon and do the dishes after! You can always bring some goodies home with you and cook up your own feast later...........

daylesford accommodation luxury and style at zahalka house

the best thing about having your mates come and stay at your own weekender is the all night wining and dining and music and woo hoo, last dinner we had local organic goat and the best bress pinot.. the worst thing is never being able to get them out of bed in the morning, quiet, peaceful zahalka.....aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

we sat around bagging gordon ramsey, maybe he is married to anthony bourdain in a secret life..............

snuggled into french linen and went to sleep with the dulcet tones of the local smith's creek frogs singing in the night.

boutique accommodation in daylesford

At last! Zahalka house has moved in to blog land, with the hope of enlisting like minded style obsessed weekenders from around Daylesford and the rest of Australia...............

so, this the first day, the first crack at blog land

daylesford luxury

mmmmm, another lovely bar meal at the farmers arms, and back to zahalka for a relaxing evening of revelrie....
the leaves are falling and the house has been flat chat, a group up from mercedez benz, another lovely family back for their second stay.....

I've stayed a few nights to try and egg the pot plants on just a little more and to add a few lovely bits and pieces here and there. just waiting on a trevor hoppen painting to comer back form the framers as well as now being the proud owner of a very stunning anthony kelly oil painting.
the tomatoes still have got some life in them and tho i fear the rabbits may be sneaking in at night to eat the pumpkins (do rabbits eat punkins?), they seem not to have noticed the lovely lettuces and yummo parsley growing by the path

no doilies here

zahalka house started as a response to the over abundance of doily clad fluffy toilet seat and floral bedspread b and b's in the daylesford area, as well as a reaction to the only other alternative which all look like something out of a freedom furniture catalogue (blerchhhh)

the first always have that creepy maybe grandma is going to walk in on us any second feel and the second always makes me want to look for the price tags, like uv just stumbled into a display home- was i actually allowed to touch or use anything? and could i sit on the furniture?

i wanted somewhere homey and natural, with real stuff, but good stuff, and a kick ass kitchen that had more in it than some teabags and cheap saucepans

I stayed (as a guest) somewhere in Hanging Rock recently, not decorated since the mid 80's, hugely expensive and ugly to boot. Great views, as long as you faced outside at all times.............
all those other beige-abounding granite benchtop, spa water-draining, log fire fuel burning eco diasaters i could never afford anyway, but i wouldn't stay there even if i could!!! creative black holes that are so gorgeously generic but uninspiring and cold cold cold

we were booked up for two months within 2 days of listing on an accomodation in daylesford site, with everyone who booked exclaiming 'finally! a home with cool stuff and yummy sheets and real art work!'
so far we've had girls weekends, mardi gras boys holiday, architects, painters, the dean of rmit uni, o/s film makers, my brother, restaurateurs and a bunch of really normal people that just like nice things