Meet the family
but by a farming family!
Jeff and Chris head up the farming family of their two children, two in laws and their respective families of six grandchildren. Originally from Jackson Street in Niddrie, Jeff went through Dookie Agriculture College to make his way into farming. He and his wife Chris started out by leasing land around Little River and Keilor, trading in sheep, cattle and cropping. They ran up to 10,000 sheep and 700 cattle on Taylors Lakes, before moving to Manor Lakes (then called Manor Park) when it was redeveloped.
Farming isn’t an easy life. Droughts, high interest rates and stock markets all dictate the viability of each farming year. Over the years when droughts were rife, Jeff took on additional work in earthmoving and landscaping and Chris waitressing and cleaning, to keep the farm afloat.
The family then moved from Manor Lakes, next door to Winterset in the 1980s, buying a large tract of land to own and work on permanently. Jeff continues to run crops, sheep and cattle and when the lambs need marking or the cattle need mustering, his family and friends come to lend a hand. Jeff and Chris still love the land, and live on Winterset to this day!
Winterset Lodge Estate was not a name picked at random. Jeff and Chris bought their original acreage in Wyndham Vale from a jockey who had called the land Winterset Lodge after his jumps horse ‘Winterset’ that had financed the purchase. They kept the name and extended it to their property additions. When the time came to develop residential properties on a portion of the land, they had the perfect name ready-made: Winterset Lodge Estate.
Winterset Lodge Estate was not a name picked at random. Jeff and Chris bought their original acreage in Wyndham Vale from a jockey who had called the land Winterset Lodge after his jumps horse ‘Winterset’ that had financed the purchase. They kept the name and extended it to their property additions. When the time came to develop residential properties on a portion of the land, they had the perfect name ready-made: Winterset Lodge Estate.
Then & now
When Jeff and Chris bought Winterset in 1975, it was a bare 900 acre paddock with exactly two trees. Over the past 46 years it has transformed into 1050 acre rural paradise peppered with native Australian flora, having planted 50,000 sugar gum and wattle trees and 55,000 saltbush shrubs to keep the land bountiful and biodiverse. Many of these trees can be found on the Winterset Lodge Estate today.
The Winterset area was extremely rural until quite recently. Jeff and Chris’s first house at Manor Lakes relied on generators, hurricane lamps, water tanks, dams and windmill-powered bores in a truly pioneering lifestyle. Once a week, they drove into Werribee for groceries that they would store in a kerosene fridge. Sheep and cattle would be delivered on trains to Werribee, and stockmen would walk them out to the nearby farming properties. Every few months, they would host barn dances in their shearing shed to help raise building funds for the Iramoo Primary School Chickens would nest up in the rafters, old wooden floors would creak and buckle under the weight of the dancers, and every now and then the generator would run out of petrol and shut off, leaving the guests laughing in the dark. Jeff coached the Wyndham Vale football team, and families would have their kids stay at Winterset to experience farm life.
Today the region enjoys the benefit of convenient shopping and entertainment facilities, restaurants, transport and exceptional schools right on its doorstep. Winterset Lodge Estate is a tranquil, leafy and peaceful residential estate where country lifestyle and urban convenience resonate beautifully together.
