Restoring Belvedere: Montville’s historic haven on the hill

Belvedere in its prime, above. The owners are looking at ways to restore this once stately home, below. 

Belvedere today.

This Old House: from recollections by Hilary Brown, research by Cate Patterson, Montville History Group

This old house on the hill at 128 Balmoral Road was once a wonderful family home and a popular guest house. 

The original 160 acres (Portion 101v Parish of Maleny) was selected in 1890 by Richard Proctor Remington who built a hut from sawn timber with a shingle roof.

Remington’s main home was at Palmwoods and known as Rose Hill and from here his wife Ann ran the general store and post office. Remington constructed a shute for the timber taken from the top of the Range.

Adeline, Charles, Alice and Val Downes at Belvedere circa 1930.

He also established strawberries, citrus and bananas on his property. Remington travelled the track that would be later known as Remington’s Shute with horse and slide between his Palmwoods home and his Montville property. He retired to Caloundra and disposed of this property before his death in 1918.

Ten acres of Remington’s property was bought by Charles and Alice Downes, a young couple who had been living in a hut on what would later become the Palmwoods-Montville Road. Here they kept a few cows. Their children Val and Del found it a long hard walk up the hill to school and the family were grateful to find land closer to the school on what was called the Eastern Road (now Balmoral Road).

Here they grew citrus and sold sweet mandarins and oranges. Local ads for fruit from the Belvedere Orchard in the 1940s offered half a bushel for around 5 shillings for a mix of citrus. In 1924 like many farmers in the area, looking to diversify Charles Downes planted a large area of pines on his property. 

The large two-story home was built by well-known local builder Fred Thompson around the end of WW1 on the high point of the undulating property. 

In February 1931 Montville received 40 inches – 1000 mls in nine days and the gales that followed battered the citrus and blew over Mr Downes’ tank from his shed and deposited it 100 yards away in his pineapple patch.

By the middle of the 1930s the family began advertising their home as a guest house and named it Belvedere for its idyllic location and ‘beautiful view’ of the coast. This proved a successful business for the family with its large airy rooms, generous verandah, electricity, hot and cold running water, telephone, tennis courts, riding trails and free garaging. It was a popular destination for tourists especially through the war years.

Citrus orchard and pineapple farm

Belvedere maintained its working citrus orchard and pineapple farm.  Many social and fixture tennis matches were held here from the late 1920s. Local clubs such as Senore and Mayfield were regularly hosted by the Downes family. In 1940 they held a tennis carnival on Belvedere Court to help raise funds for the Montville Sports and Recreation Ground.

Later, owners of Belvedere were the Ashton family followed by the Williams family. Who could forget the last Guy Fawkes night held in the grounds of Belvedere and attended by most of Montville’s residents. Belvedere was the first pineapple farm to use a mechanical pineapple harvester and was also the headquarters of an interstate trucking company owned and managed by Clive Williams in the 1960s.

Today, Belvedere’s owners are looking at ways to restore this once stately home.