From Orchard to Airbnb: The evolution of Denbie House

The entrance is cheery with a curving, paved path and sunflowers in the garden.

This Old House: telling the stories of landmark homes of the Blackall Range. This week G Plowman of the Montville History Group visits  Denbie at 334 Flaxton Drive  

This old house at 334 Flaxton Drive, Flaxton just north of The Craft, has withstood the test of time, and is as recognisable today as it was in the early 1930s when Frank and Doris Hetherington made it their home. 

They bought the house and a parcel of land where Frank established a mandarine orchard and ran a few cattle in the back paddock. His choice of property may well be attributed to his elder brother, D’Arcy owning the farm directly opposite. The proud homeowners called their forever home, Denbie, after the ancestral home Denbie House in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and a neatly framed name plaque above the front door welcomed their visitors. 

Frank and Doris had five children, David, Shirley, Robert, D’Arcy and Enid. They all grew up at Denbie and attended the Flaxton Provisional School.

Frank, a veteran of WWI, devoted much of his spare time to supporting local men and women who went on to serve in WWII. 

He also took an active role in the Patriotic Society and in fund-raising for the Flaxton School and other community events. 

He helped build the Montville Soldiers Memorial Hall, now St Mary’s Church and Community Hall, and in later life became a church elder. 

Doris helped run the Brownies and supported the CWA.   

The house, typical of its time, had wide front verandahs looking eastwards towards the sea. 

The front steps were few in number but because of the uneven hillside location, many more steps were needed to access the kitchen via the back door on the western side. 

The high wooden piers on the northern side permitted access beneath the house. 

This was always a handy space for storage and as a place for kids to play on a rainy day. 

It also permitted access for pest control which, in years past, usually consisted of spreading a layer of lime over the dirt beneath the house. 

Lime was seen as a deterrent for fleas and cockroaches. 

Apart from signage on the rooftop and battens enclosing the underfloor area, the external appearance is little changed.

Before electricity was connected the kitchen contained the mandatory wood stove and stove recess. Frank, Doris and the kids spent considerable time with axe in hand splitting firewood at the woodheap close to the back steps. 

They then had to be lugged up the steps and dumped into the wood box beside the stove.

Older houses like Hetheringtons had no built-in cupboards or wardrobes. 

The kitchen dresser housed the dishes and cutlery and a shelf above the stove recess carried canisters and containers of food items for everyday use. Each bedroom had a wardrobe and dressing table or chest of drawers. 

A tall-boy or linen cupboard stored clean sheets and towels where the lady of the house often left a small sachet of lavender to impart a pleasant clean smell.

The lounge cum sitting room looked north through a line of casement windows fitted with panes of translucent ‘bubbly’ glass. 

The Hetheringtons kept a wind-up gramophone here and when they played their old 78RPM records, the music wafted like a zephyr to fill the adjacent garden and trees with melodies. 

For years, a tall avocado tree grew in the front yard, and it became a favourite tree to climb for generations of Flaxton kids. 

Like the bamboos at Dixon’s corner, Hetheringtons’ avocado tree also served as a landmark to guide unfamiliar travellers.

Frank died in 1984 and with all their children now adults, Doris left the district.

During their long years of residence in Flaxton, the Hetherington family were respected members of the community and were always ready to lend a helping hand whenever it was needed.

No longer a family home, the house has become a commercial enterprise firstly as Hilltop Gallery and more recently as an Airbnb.