Historic home on the market

Cardigan Street Miner’s Right known as much for its gardens as it is for the building.

IT was built with the winnings from the 1898 Caulfield Cup and has been in the family ever since, but for the first time in one hundred and twenty years, number eight Cardigan Street, Lake Wendouree is on the open market.

Known as Hymettus, the name of the horse that started it all, the historic home has seen three generations of the Taffe family, and it of course holds significant personal memories.

“Michael Taffe, my grandfather, had a ticket in the Tattersalls Caulfield Cup sweep, won whatever he won and brought the property and we’ve been here ever since,” said third-generation owner of the property Michael Taffe.

“It’s always been just home. While I was an only child, I have 60 first cousins, so it was always a house full of people.

“We were lucky with the lake there, dad had all the connections and we used to go for trips over the lake on the steamer every other weekend.”

While the home has a history, Hymettus garden’s may be just, if not more, culturally important.

It was one of the first homes opened as part of the Victorian Garden Scheme in the late 1980s but those events pre-dated the showings between 1915 to 1918 as part of a Ballarat-wide garden competition, which Mr Taffe’s grandfather won.

“When we bought the place we didn’t know any of that,” Mr Taffe said. “We undertook renovations and found in the old pantry shelves letters and photographs from the 1890s onwards.

“The Royal Botanic Gardens from Melbourne came up and did an interpretive study of the garden layout using the old photos. So we put the garden back the way it was.

“Edgar [Bartrop] said, ‘People used to come from all over Australia to see your place’.”

The upkeep of the garden is part of the reason the Taffes have decided to sell.

“It’s my hands,” Mr Taffee said. “I can’t prune my roses anymore. I can cut the hedges, but it’s a third of an acer and a kilometre of hedge.”

The building has seen change over time. A fire around the turn of the century destroyed the rear of the house and subsequent additions over the following 12 decades have added space while retaining the home’s original character.

A professional historian, Mr Taffe has been on a journey combining his vocation with something that’s always been in his life, the family home.

That resulted in Hymettus becoming a registered museum in the 1980s and Mr Taffe ran tours of the property.

“We didn’t know much about the history, my father didn’t even know they had been burned out at the turn of the century until we read about it,” Mr Taffe said.

The team at Ray White Ballarat has taken on the job of helping write Hymettus’ next chapter, and Paul McGourlay is the lead agent.

He’s excited but respectful of the opportunity.

“It’s an absolute privilege,” he said. “It’s honestly got to be the best listing to hit the market in a very long time. The history behind this one is just unbelievable.”

Mr McGourlay said that selling a home with so much history, both to the family that’s lived in it for over 120 years, but also the city, was challenging.

“We’ve spent countless hours with the owners to make sure we get it right and going over every detail down to a fine line, and just learning as much as we can about the property to make sure that we do it justice.”