The house

1968

The Proserpine mill built it as a guest house for its own people. That explains the plan: a long north wing with the working rooms in it, two short wings of bedrooms either side, and a lawn in the middle that catches the breeze off the bay. Nothing faces west without a verandah in front of it.

The frame is Queensland hardwood and the floor is the original tongue and groove, sanded four times and now about as thin as it can usefully go. We will replace it board by board rather than all at once, because replacing it all at once would make it a different floor.

What we changed

• The roof, in 1998 and again in 2019. Both times steel, both times the same profile.
• The wiring, in 2004. The conduit runs on the surface where you can see it, which is how it was done here and how we did it again.
• The bathrooms, room by room between 2011 and 2017. Each one took three weeks and each one kept its window.
• The pool, lined in 2021. It is 14 metres and it is not heated, because it does not need to be.

What we left

The louvres. The breezeway. The hall, which is too wide by any modern measure and is the best room in the building on a hot afternoon. The ice room at the back, with its thick walls and its concrete floor, which has been a cold store, a store room, a laundry and now a gaming room, and which has never been knocked about.

How a room is built

The section below is one room and its verandah. The roof oversails by two and a half metres, which is what keeps the sun off the wall and the rain off the louvres. The louvres start at waist height. You can leave them open in a storm and the floor stays dry.

Staff

There are eleven of us. Four work the desk and the floor, three in the kitchen, two on the rooms, and two on the gaming room door and bar. Most have been here more than five years. If you ask any of them a question about the building they will know the answer, and if they do not they will go and find out.