Sense of Place | Simmone Logue

New Year, new adventures and new resolutions?

Before we rush into 2026, let's stay in the hazy days of summer a little longer, as I share the highlights of a recent visit to Simmone Logue's beautiful property in NSW's Central Tablelands.

Like many Australians, we take a roadtrip during the summer holidays, often leaving the Byron bubble early in the New Year. The last few years we've travelled south to visit family in Bermagui and enroute popped over the Great Dividing Range to visit Simmone in Oberon. My working life has been grounded in the belief that buildings and interiors can influence how we feel.  They can be restorative, transformative and often oppressive (like most roadside stops on the highway). 

So, it’s always a joy to visit places where the elements of architecture,  interiors and landscape come together to create a true sense of place ~ like Simmone Logue’s country shack 😊 Essington Park. Read more ...

Set in the high country outside Oberon, Essington Park is a property deeply woven into the early pastoral history of the Central Tablelands. The homestead’s construction around 1860 places it among many early rural estates built as the Oberon district consolidated its identity in the mid-19th century, centred on grazing and agriculture. The incredible bones and intactness of the grounds, along with the sympathetic restoration of the Shearers’ Quarters, have retained a true sense of authenticity.
Too often, country and coastal landscapes are overworked—boastful beach houses or overachieving country homes built with little thought of the existing landscape. Simmone’s heart has guided the restoration of this place, and it shows.

Landscapes for the soul
There is something about this wide-open landscape that speaks to me—perhaps it’s my early years in Tamworth, or simply the incredible homestead and heritage buildings. This place has an intangible beauty, where landscape marries with buildings, materials, gardens, wooden hand-painted signs, heritage chickens, wattle-and-wire fences, and time itself.  

The property became home to twin sisters Simmone and Joanna Logue back in the 1990s—a place of retreat for Simmone, a renowned cook and entrepreneur, and an enduring landscape for Joanna to paint. With Joanna now living and painting in America, Simmone has recently undertaken extensive restoration of the historic buildings, including the main homestead, preserving original features such as exposed rammed-earth walls and fireplaces, while maintaining the property’s rustic charm—both as a residence and a rural retreat for visitors.

Old friends  + old houses
One of the highlights of summer is taking time; this is the new luxury. Time to hang out with old friends, in the best possible way. We met back in the late ’90s, long before she built a foodie empire. It was when she was peeling prawns in the kitchen of her first shop in Balmain, and I was scraping paint off old doors. Thankfully, those days are behind us, along with the relentless pressures of high-street hurdles and the like. Nowadays, our conversations are about plants, compost, worm farms, food, interiors, and travel.

Living your life in 2026
We love visiting in summer for the dry heat and drinks on the lawn under the oak tree. Winter for the serious cold, campfires, and getting a chance to wear winter clothes 😊, and Spring for the flowers and the bees. Start 2026 in the best way possible and book a trip to Essington Park. Peruse the website for workshops and accommodation options, and breathe in the country air.

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