AN INTRIGUING and dramatic Renaissance-inspired building is slowly but surely taking form in a residential Daylesford street.
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Montacute at Villa Castagna in Stanhope Street is an interpretation of a 1560s garden pavilion from Somerset, England.
More than just a building however, the elaborate construction also features a spectacular garden including obelisks, which although from ancient Egypt were popular in Renaissance architecture.
The garden will also include castle-like battlement fences, a “hedge theatre” and “box parterres” – symmetrically-designed gardens.
Owner David Marshall, an art and architectural historian specialising in Italian art of the 16th to 18th centuries and currently a principal fellow at the University of Melbourne, purchased the property in 1970 – but has more recently decided to create his dream structure.
Self-designed, and constructed with a team of local builders, carpenters and engineers, Dr Marshall said the structure and gardens were intended to reflect Daylesford’s “festive” feel.
Over the past few months, with his partner - also an academic - Dr Marshall has been developing their home into a neo-Baroque garden with English and Italian Renaissance influences, based on two buildings he has “long admired”.
Dr Marshall said the “ogee” or reverse curve of the roof was a feature of gothic architecture with a “finial” at the top with two intersecting circles, reflecting the interest in geometric forms at the time.
Ultimately, the building and gardens will become a Daylesford holiday let, which Dr Marshall hoped would be ready by next year.
“To adapt the form of the building to this purpose, it has been slightly enlarged, the windows changed to Elizabethan-type bay windows, and the side facing the street extended a little,” he said.
“The idea is that in the upper room you are in the treetops, looking down into the garden on three sides. The lower room similarly opens to the garden.”
Dr Marshall said the building would be “a lively accent to the streetscape”.
“Many of the garden features are inspired by Italian or English Renaissance and Baroque ideas,” he said.
“Because of the number of chestnut trees and our association with Italy, we call the property Villa Castagna, ‘castagna’ being the Italian word for sweet chestnut.”