Chancery Offers Range Of Uses
The Age
Wednesday December 10, 1997
EMERALD $300,000-plus
The Chancery, 90 Beaconsfield-Emerald Road, Emerald. Bluestone: 10 rooms. Land: 3.28 hectares. Auction: 12.30pm Saturday 13 December by Judd Real Estate, Berwick (9707 4222).
"The Chancery offers exciting possibilities as a home with studios, galleries, workshops or various commercial applications." -- Roland Betheras, Judd Real Estate.
Best feature: the huge spaces.
IT WILL probably take a creative mind to work out the best use for this property, which is unusual, to say the least, but there is no shortage of options.
It would be suited to use as studios and a gallery, with accommodation for a group of artists - somewhat like a Montsalvat concept - or there are, no doubt, a number of possible commercial uses.
The "grand hall" would be an ideal place for wedding receptions or other functions, while a religious or social group might find the combination of buildings attractive.
All of these would require appropriate approvals, of course.
The main building is of bluestone, with 10 rooms divided informally into two units, each with three bedrooms, with their own kitchen and bathroom facilities. There is some finishing work needed in parts, although the basics are all there.
Splitting the two units at the rear is the most amazing room in the place, a space about the size of a reasonable country town's municipal hall or a church.
It has a vast open fireplace at one end, where there is also a mezzanine level, and huge, solid double doors at the other. It is lined in timber, with high clerestory windows above the roofline of the rest of the structure.
Also on the property is a two-storey structure said to be a geodesic dome construction, with a curved roof that reminds the visitor of an aircraft hangar on the upper level, which is at the same ground level as the house.
A driveway leads down the hillside to provide access to the lower level, a drive-in, lock-up area of about 100 square metres.
Next to it is a bunker-like garage or workshop with roller doors and power connected. It has a flat turf roof just waiting to be turned into a croquet lawn or putting green. Petanque is another game that comes to mind, for which it would be fine as it is.
There are two car entrances to the property, converging on a circular drive that leads to both levels. The land is mainly bush that has been partly cleared.
© 1997 The Age
