THE ENTERTAINER ON 1/3 ACRE!
You can enjoy all of these options from this large one owner family home on a huge 1350sqm/1/3 Acre garden block with views.
This property has been enlarged to provide extended family accommodation and a home/office with dual entry. Featuring 3 large bedrooms & study area (including sink and cupboards). The kitchen, meals, living and family room open design is very functional and provides for family entertaining. This area flows directly to the balcony and downstairs billiards room. Other inclusions are open fire, air conditioning and ducted heating. There is a magnificent in-ground pool with solar heating, and 3 carports. Situated just 5 doors from the beautiful bushland at Wombolano Park you can either walk to Heathmont or Ringwood East Shopping Centres and Stations.
This is a rare, rare find in a wonderful area.

HISTORY

House of the Week – for the last 55 years

The house that raised money for the Heathmont and Ringwood East Community is now for sale.

Pat and I, with our first two children, bought three blocks in the new Pinewood estate south of Canterbury road and subdivided them into two ninety foot blocks. We applied and subsequently received a plan from the famous
Robin Boyd at the Age Small Homes Service and built at the 1956 Olympic games time financed with a War Service loan. We were in the remains of farmland, with the original house gum trees standing fifty yards from the rear of our new allotment. There were only three houses south of Canterbury road then together with four "Shacks" which were only just habitable. The Thatchers had built their house on the top of the Pinewood hill opposite the original farmhouse and they backed onto the 23 acre farm owned by old man Taylor. He was a loner after his wife had died and as there were no children he decided to donate his land to the local shire for use as native parkland which was later named Wombalano Park. He kept a few acres for himself which later became Rawson Court.

In 1956 John and Pat Ulrik built their weatherboard house on top of the hill looking at Mount Dandenong on one of the only two 1/3 acre blocks in the area at 15 Rotherwood Avenue on what was an orchard paddock. There was no power, they had to run a line from half way along Pinewood Avenue and there were no roads, they had to arrange a grader to get to their front gate. Canterbury road was a single lane track winding through the gum trees down the hill from Bedford road which caused fatal car crashes on a regular basis, especially on a Saturday night.

In the 1964 fires everyone in the area headed to the Ulrik back yard for the women and children to sit in the pool while the men went to fight the bush fire, and subsequently save Wombolano park. Later that night everyone watched in awe as Mount Dandenong burnt in the distance – it looked like icing running down a cake.

15 Rotherwood Avenue was – and still is – a party house. The whole house opens from the back door (through the kitchen, dining, lounge and what was always called the big room)
to the front.

The nearest hospital in those days was Box Hill, so the Rotherwood Avenue house was often the local nursing station for the wide range of accidents and incidents that occurred in the "Country" of the then Ringwood East and Heathmont area. Not only car accidents, but snake bites, particularly a close call for Denny Anderson, a fish bone stuck in throat of Olivio Celante even a gunshot wound to Frank Horvath. The Ringwood East and Heathmont Women’s Auxiliary for the Maroondah hospital had many of their fund raisers at the house and as the house had the first swimming pool in the area the major fund raiser was the Hawaiian Luau nights, but the ladies fabulous chicken and champagne lunches for 40 raised an incredible amount of money.
The Bayswater North Tennis Club had their "Gambling Nights" horse racing, Roulette, one arm bandits. The first Heathmont Scout group started in the shed on the Washusens orchard, and many fund raising parties at Rotherwood Avenue were had to raise money for the "New" scout hall at the end of Barnic Road.
The Ulrik "Children" were very involved in the local Scouts, Girl Guides, Tennis clubs, ballet, both primary and secondary schools – all of which had parties or functions at the Rotherwood Avenue house. Even the "Big" room at Rotherwood Avenue was used for dance lessons for the local teenagers. Needless to say family 21st birthdays and weddings were always held in the house or the backyard.