Country Road || The Best of Bellingen

Of all the unique and beautiful places to stay I have found in Australia so far, the Bellingen Farmhouse is up there with the very best. Owner Susan Weil (who lives here with her two daughters) has created an incredibly special farmstay experience. Just five minutes out of town, with north east mountain views over Old Man Dreaming, the Bellingen Farmhouse sits on an eight-acre biodynamic working farm and makes up part of Weilhouse Living—four unique properties that embody Susan’s love of nature, beauty and simplicity…

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Focus Magazine || Weil House Living

Susan Weil lives with her two children on a gorgeous eight-acre farm just a few minutes from Bellingen. She has brought new life to the property, using both permaculture and biodynamic farming principles, and has built stunning homes (three on her farm and one off-grid hut on the New England Tablelands) that she offers up as unique and beautiful accommodation options.

Initially I grew food for our local markets, cafes and restaurants but now I just grow for us, and our guests and I sell any surplus at our roadside stall at the front of our farm…

A Hotel Life || Weil House Living

IMPORTANT BITS

TYPE: Rural farmstay

VIBE: Bohemian vintage — like staying with an eccentric auntie who’s spent the past few decades collecting antiques, and happens to make an out-of-this-world goat’s cheese frittata

LOCATION: In the stillness of the mountains, but close enough to the town, beaches and rivers that make the area so magical

ROOMS: The main farmhouse sleeps ten people across four bedrooms, with one queen size bed beneath a net on the veranda, so guests can wake up immediately immersed in nature. The Vintage Farmstay sleeps four people across one twin room and one double bedroom, while the Farm Shed accommodates up to five guests across four bedrooms. The Wilderness Hut, another unique property under the Weil House Living umbrella, sleeps up to nine guests with an open plan design…

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Our Conscious Space || The Conscious Space publication

Bellingen Farm House – a timber clad, rambling farmhouse perched on a hill behind New South Wales’s most talked about town of 2020 (from my experience) – is, at its core, a family home. The busy kitchen is stacked with mismatched crockery and heavy pans that hang above the distressed wooden island, bookshelves groan with novels and poetry and the windows which cover every wall flood the house with sunlight. Beside the deck which is home to one of two long dining tables (as well as swings, a queen size bed and a roll top bath), a daybed stretches into the garden, flanked by sliding windows that open up to far-reaching views of the mountains.

The house was designed and built by marriage counsellor and relationship therapist turned architect/ builder/ interior decorator/ farmer/ host Susan Weil, initially as the family home from which she would raise her children.

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Bellingen Farmhouse || Country Homes

We think this is the best Farmstay in NSW. It is a cut above the competition and once you have stayed here you will understand why. Every care has been taken to ensure you have a very special farm holiday. Each home has been lovingly furnished and well stocked for your country retreat. The warm welcome you receive as soon as you arrive, makes you feel right at home. Susan Weil believes in the power of simplicity and these days she makes a living by sharing homes and its subtropical largesse with visitors from all around the world.

There’s a daybed at Susan Weil’s farmhouse that has travelled with her most of her adult life. She spotted the remodelled Indian bullock cart in a shop in Bellingen on the NSW mid north coast as a 21 year old on a road trip with friends. Then she paid what at the time was an extravagant amount to buy it and ship it back to her home in Sydney. Whenever she’s moved, the daybed has been the piece of furniture that’s been first on the truck. Now more than 25 years later, it’s come home to roost on the verandah of her farmhouse in the Bellingen hinterland. She has turned it into her double bed and sleeps outside on it year round.

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Weilhouse Living || Recycled Interiors

Susan now has 3 beautiful country getaways on her working farm in Bellingen NSW– The largest, The Bellingen Farm House is the one she lives in with her two daughters, and which has featured on the cover of Rural Australian Homes, and they have a vintage farm stay house featured here. To top it off, they also have a great little off the grid hut, Hernani Wilderness Hut, a rare gem of a country getaway, also furnished with recycled and pre loved interiors. All of these country getaways have passive solar design with an emphasis on minimising their carbon footprint, using solar, rain tanks and recycled materials…

Bellingen Farmhouse || Rural Australian Homes

A little over a year after the family moved into their farm house, it’s impossible to imagine it once stood on an empty slope. Now, with biodynamic principles in place, this beautiful working farm sustains them in every way. Down in the corner, a reed bed system treats wastewater from the house. An orchard is planted with various types of limes, mandarins and oranges. An enormous vegetable garden feeds them year round. Chickens provide more eggs than they can possibly use themselves…

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Hernani Wilderness Hut || Spaces by Frankie Magazine

Originally the shed had a plain-looking verandah off to one side, with metal poles to hold it up. Susan had the area enclosed, using recycled windows and doors, and it’s now the dining room and another sleeping area. A wood-burning stove, which heats water as well as the hut, sits along side the bed in this area and, when turned down low, can keep going all night…