From ‘absolutely terrible’: the rescue of a 100-year-old Palmwoods rail shed

By Richard Bruinsma

A century-old Palmwoods shed that was falling apart, has been resurrected as a rustic home for coffee catchups, dinners, and specialised vintage retail, thanks to a handful of people determined to rescue the historic building.

The old rail shed on Main Street had for years been slowly collapsing – a leaking roof, rotting beams and floorboards, termite damage, and foundations weakened by years of stormwater flows, deemed the building ‘too far gone’ by many and at genuine risk of demolition.

However, a lengthy and painstaking restoration has converted the building back into something of which all Palmwoodians can be proud.

The restored warehouse is now a unique tourist drawcard that is unmatched “between Bowral and Cape York”, thanks to its charming old-world character, its delicious seasonal menus and its licences as authorised vintage dealers and authenticators.

Building owner Marilyn Stokes, a qualified architect who operates a building access advisory, spearheaded the restoration project after acquiring the building in 2015.

“My first thoughts were, ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ It was in an absolutely terrible state, but it definitely had a lot of potential being where it is on Main Street,” she explained.

The acquisition triggered a difficult but historically-truthful seven-year transformation of the iconic but dilapidated old shed.

“The floor was like walking on honeycomb - it was completely white-anted – and all of the walls, the stud work, the rafters, everything inside, had to be replaced,” Ms Stokes explained.

“Unfortunately, water funnels down from each end of Main Street, and there’s an open drain that runs under the building, the railway line and the road and into the duck ponds, which took a lot of the soil from under the building, so that all had to be repaired too.

“Some of the actual structural items were very unusual sizes - all of the studwork was 3.6 metres long and in hardwood milled in the local area around 100 years ago, and it was a challenge getting the rafters, which were 7 metres long - it was very difficult to find the right timber to use to replace the old timber.

“We basically had to replace the skeleton on the inside first, from the ground up, including all the floor structure, and once that was all done, then we attacked the outside with the replacement of the boards.

“We saved as many of the weatherboards as we could and we managed to pick up some of the same hardwood boards from Sunshine Coast Demolition and Salvage in Colless Lane, Nambour.

“Then we completely re-roofed it, it needed to replace the roof right the way through.

“There were three roller doors that were all badly damaged… and, because it had been a commercial building, there were no windows on the building at all. We managed to source some old Queenslander windows… and we put the window hoods on them in keeping with the rest of the Queenslanders in Palmwoods.”

While still taking shape, the unique restoration project caught the eye of local businessman Geoff Ryan, whose needed a new home for his growing homewares and gift store ‘The Shed’, which was, ironically, located in a concrete industrial complex in Forest Glen.

“Marilyn was still doing up the building – more like saving it,” Mr Ryan explained.

“It was in pretty bad shape… we started having some input about the work, we were telling her our plans, what we were aiming to do, so some of her renovation turned into something that suited us as well.

“We didn’t want to bastardise the building’s historical look by putting in mirrors, chrome, stainless steel, marble floors – it just wouldn’t suit the building, and the building always wins. You know, if the building is an old shed, it has to look rustic and vintage, which is what our business is.

“We wanted to give it some character… the dining room walls were timber framing and weatherboards on the outside, so we decided to put some of the salvaged corrugated tin up inside there, and it gave it a whole heap of character and changed the look.

“If you look at the outside of the building, and when you walk in, you see exactly what you thought it would look like; people love the old ladders hanging up, they love the decorating my wife Dianna has done, the placement of our counters and furniture, and even the look of the bar – it’s rustic thick timber, not perfect, old rusty tin used as features for some of the cladding – and people are happy.”

The historic building is today the much-suited home of The Shed and the Chew Chew Bistro restaurant, both characterised by rustic tones, iron and timber – much of it recycled – along with eclectic furnishings and furniture that give the venue its warm welcoming appeal.

The lengthy and painstaking restoration verges on the unbelievable, and a credit to the ‘never give up’ attitude of those who are responsible for what really is a miracle rescue.

Some of the walls are not quite plumb, as you’d expect of such an old building, but it suits the character just fine – it’s also a reminder of the long and productive life this building as endured so far.

“It is a perfect building for us,” Mr Ryan explained. “Previously we were in an industrial complex, and now we’re in shed, so the location is perfectly suited to us.

“People come great distances to shop here… you can come along and have a nice meal and then meander for 20 or 30 minutes amongst all the vintage goodies in the retail area… there is no business like it within all of Queensland and half of New South Wales.”

The rail shed was built by a cooperative of farmers and producers around 1919, and helped store locally-grown produce like pineapples and citrus, prior to shipping down to Brisbane. At one stage, it was one of the busiest railway yards in Queensland, hosting some 30 trains a day.

The aging building faced an unknown future after the death in 2014 of former owner Peter Crosby, a farmer and property owner whose rural supply business was a well-known tenant of the shed through the 2000s.

However, on his passing, his widow Marilyn offered the building to the Palmwoods Action Group, in the hope it could be repaired and utilised for the community. The massive scale of the required restoration work, and the convoluted lease arrangements governing the site, made that plan problematic.

“I own the buildings but everything under the buildings is land on a long-term lease to Queensland Rail, but the ultimate owners are the Department of Transport and Main Roads – so they lease it to Queensland Rail and Queensland Rail leases it to me,” Ms Stokes explained.

“The sheds were in a very poor state, and there was a clause in the lease said that once the lease was terminated or expired, the buildings had to be removed from the site.

“We decided to take on the restoration as a project - it was either that or the building would have fallen apart and the lease would have expired and there would have been no trace of the building anymore.”

It was about three-quarters through her restoration that she was approached by Mr Ryan.

“Geoff was the one who came past and saw the building and fell in love with it and decided it was what he wanted for his business,” Ms Stokes said.

“We’ve recycled a lot of the timber that we took out. We saved what we could – the cookie bar and the drinks bar are all made out of the old bits of hardwood structure that we took out, so it’s all still in there, it’s just in a different format.

“It has been amazing... What they have done in there now, it was something that was in the back of my mind as being always the ultimate way of using this building, and it’s all just come together so well.

“I couldn’t wish for a better business to be operating in there, and they are fantastic tenants; they have the same interests at heart and we work together to get the best out of the building.”