Handpicked Festival

November 12, 2022

Words by Hollie Connery.

Hidden among vineyards and shaded by gum trees, on the vast and sprawling lawn of Lake Breeze Wines, lies a place that, for a moment in time, becomes the delightful Handpicked Festival. What started as a small family-run music festival has now grown into one of the most talked about music festivals in the state.

After a two-year hiatus, Langhorne Creek’s event of the year is set to come alive again this November. The festival first began in 2014, after years of pondering and planning. The Folletts of Lake Breeze Wines remarked, ‘We had talked so often about how it would be great to open it up to the people. It worked out nicely that our niece Kate came along with experience in running events; she picked it up and ran with it from there.’ The event’s emphasis was to create a small boutique music festival with a focus on the little details that provide visitors with a fully immersive, sensory experience.

The first year saw two and a half thousand people stroll through the gates and onto the Follett’s property to enjoy their award-winning Lake Breeze and False Cape wines. It was a proud moment that family member and organiser Kate remembers fondly. ‘Grandpa is very sentimental; that very first year he stood in his backyard where the cows normally are and just started tearing up a little. He was just so happy to be sharing his backyard with so many people, and I think so proud of what his family had accomplished. Something he started so long ago is able to support so many of his family members, it’s a wonderful legacy,’ she recalls. From there, the festival has grown by a thousand guests each year. An impressive line up this year includes the likes of the Hilltop Hoods, Babe Rainbow, The Dreggs, Wafia and The Rubens. Steph Strings and Middle Kids will draw the crowds and Hot Dub Time Machine will have everyone barefoot and dancing into the night. A stellar line up aside, Kate remarks, ‘It’s more than just the music for us. People’s whole experience being here is taken into detailed consideration. We always say in the winery that it’s all about the one percenters. We like to do all those little things that add up to an amazing day.’

The family prides itself on creating a memorable experience with something for everyone, and attests that the festival is truly multigenerational. Set among the sweeping vines, the property has plenty of space to stretch out on a picnic rug under the shade of one of the hundreds of gorgeous gums. There will be over twenty food vendors, so the array of culinary delights are numerous. A cocktail forest will serve up refreshing and surprising blends, and a market laneway with over fifteen stalls creates a quieter place to take a stroll, shop boutique finds and meet the makers. The whole festival has been designed with sustainability and beauty in mind.

The anticipated return of the festival after Covid restrictions meant that the early-bird round of tickets sold out in fifteen minutes, before the line-up was even announced. ‘It’s just huge for our family, knowing that people would be there supporting us no matter who we are going to put on the stage,’ Kate says. This ‘crazy idea’ may now boast big numbers, but its organisers remain true to the small backyard concert vibe that started the whole thing. As Kate says, ‘I want to just keep working on the experience and keep flying the family flag.’

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Above: Sunahama no koya – a high-performance home built with beautiful woodwork and attention to detail at Goolwa Beach. Exterior deck chairs, pillows and table supplied by Living by Design.

Ben Kernahan, Tom Shaw and Sam Foutoulis – together known as 35º South Building Company – are sitting around the generous table in the dwindling light of a cool winter’s day. There’s a clear camaraderie between the three. They converse easily and listen to each other’s responses, their mutual respect obvious. The table is crafted from rough-sawn timber and it aptly symbolises the shared purpose that led them to found 35º South.

Sunahama no koya

Story by Petra de Mooy. Photography by Jason Porter. Styling by Liza Reynolds.

‘We like timber and we like working with it,’ Ben says. ‘The first clear cut goal we had that united us was to buy a freestanding saw mill.’ They registered 35º South in 2019 and some six or so months later, they realised this objective, purchasing a portable Lucas Saw Mill. The mill is housed in their workshop/office – a converted chicken shed on Tom’s parent’s property outside of Goolwa – and it’s now the foundation of their business. ‘We use it as much as we can, and utilise whatever [wood] we can get our hands on to create feature carpentry or bespoke elements in our builds,’ says Ben. As one of only a few licensed builders in Australia who operate a Lucas Mill, it’s a clear point of difference for the young craftsmen. >

Above: The Siberian Larch extends over all plains of the house and creates beautiful continuity and style to the exteriors. The double-glazed, highperformance windows from Rylock in black add a nice contrast to the wood and copper elements.

Ben, Tom and Sam first met when they were all working towards their building apprenticeships on the Southern Fleurieu. After being introduced by mutual friends and family, they began doing small jobs together and just generally helping each other out – whether it be moving, building or simply sharing a meal. ‘We all loved the balance of lifestyle and creating beautiful things,’ says Sam. As they continued to catch up and talk about their shared dreams, it made sense that they’d eventually join forces.

Their professional alliance is underpinned by their shared work ethic and generosity. All have helped, or will help, each other build their respective homes. And now as wives and children expand their cohort, all three are more than happy to call Goolwa Beach home. When Tom began to visualise the home he wanted to build, all he had was a rough floor plan and an eye to sustainability. ‘I’m not big on forward planning,’ says Tom. ‘I like the shape and form of the gabled roof line and cathedral look. The design was based on a really simple floor plan of two rectangles that are offset to give a bit of interest. I really like timber cladding and I wanted it [the home] to perform really well but also be really durable. But a lot of stuff came from decisions we made along the way.’ The building belies this somewhat ad hoc approach. It feels very well conceived, with the organic way of working allowing for design changes and improvements

Above: The cathedral ceilings are accented with linear lighting. The open wooden framing in the mezzanine accentuates the roof line. Rug and leather pouffe are from Morocco by Mish and the Mala Arm Chair in salt & pepper leather hide was supplied by Living by Design.

along the way that only seem to have enhanced the outcome. The finished house, which Tom shares with his partner, Grace, and their two children is clearly a labour of love full of bespoke elements and meticulous attention to detail.

The three builders had already worked with the key materials they’ve used on Tom’s home in smaller features for their clients. Tom’s build offered the chance to explore the full potential of these materials on a larger scale, including the striking Siberian larch siding which extends across all exterior planes, hammered into place with over 4,500 copper nails. The wood will eventually weather off to a beautiful silver grey, much like the sandy soil it sits upon. The building’s high-performance aspects aren’t immediately evident, but Tom tells us that the wall build-up is thicker than standard (120mm as opposed to 90mm) so that they could maximise insulation. The building is also ‘wrapped’ with a German-made wall membrane to make the home airtight. This membrane is airtight, but vapour permeable, allowing moisture buildup inside the home to escape. A ventilated wall-batten system was used to create an air cavity behind the timber cladding, which ensures there’s adequate airflow to remove the moisture buildup as it escapes the building. The building’s airtightness performed impressively when measured by a blower door test, prior to drywalling: they achieved 1.9 air >

Above: The master bedroom with ensuite is pared back with a custom-made bed (by home-owner Tom) in neutral earth tones. Foreground rug from Morocco by Mish. Bottom left and right: Details form the art wall in the living area.

changes per hour, which doesn’t mean a whole lot until you realise that most homes would be more like fifteen.

These measures also combine to help create an even indoor temperature. ‘At the moment we have minimal heating or cooling and it’s pretty comfortable inside,’ says Tom. The underfloor heating at this stage (mid-winter) is only turned on for a couple of hours a day, with the thermal mass of the concrete floors doing the rest of the hard work, retaining any passive solar heat to keep Tom and his family warm.

Personalised elements in the home like the tilework and the colourful doors were introduced to bring character to the interiors – to set the home apart from what Tom says was a bit too ‘neat and tidy’ prior to the introduction of these elements. ‘We spent a night with friends drinking wine and painting the doors with everyone having free reign on what they could do,’ he explains. The result is an individualised entrance to every room each with solid-wood, hand-turned handles, unified by the colour palette Tom and Grace chose. It has to be said, they clearly have a creative bunch of friends – this level of free reign could produce results of varying quality in less artistic hands.

The design for the mezzanine also offered the chance for personalisation, as Tom considered how to incorporate timber to define the space. In the end, they landed on a hand-crafted open screen, with a triangular cutout mimicking the lines of the window at the far end of the living space. ‘It’s a nice feature because it accentuates the pitch of the ceiling and shows off the cathedral style of the space,’ says Tom. These unique elements make the home >

Above left: The bathroom cabinetry by Goolwa Kitchen repeats the solid wood scallop detail from the kitchen. The room also features graphic ochre tiles, scalloped freestanding bath and green concrete basin. Right: A detail from the laundry room – because we liked it. Right: The wide-plank exterior deck cut diagonally and rounded on the corners is a nice contrast to the linear solid wood pergola.

feel warm and approachable, and though the family had only lived there for a few weeks on the day we visited, it felt well lived in and well loved already.

The kitchen design is simple, but solid wood elements and a bit of colour give it character. The team collaborated with Goolwa Kitchens on the fitout, working with a grey, green and matte black palette that creates a clean look softened by the timber elements added by 35˚ South after the kitchen installation. The scalloped detailing on the main bench in particular adds warmth and a furniture-like quality to the cabinetry. The kitchen overlooks the double-height living area, which features lighting designed to enhance the scale of the room. Long, black light fittings sit flush with the pitch of the ceiling, while round wall sconces create subtle pockets of light along the length of the room.

The building’s exterior also has some beautiful details. Tom opted to go for aluminum window frames, in part due to their durability and robustness in the face of a fairly severe corrosion zone. Choosing Rylock’s Commercial Series frames, powder coated in a matte black finish, gave Tom the practical benefits he was after in a sleek and attractive design that cleanly defines the windows and doors within the textured exterior surfaces.

These details, and others like the copper downpipes, have all been carefully considered not only on their individual merit but also on how they relate to the other elements of the house; how they meet both physically and aesthetically and combine into the whole. The result is reminiscent of furniture joinery – crafted rather than simply combined. ‘As a company we like fine detail. We have discussions on the aesthetic details and we work hard to get all of the details really nice,’ says Tom. ‘We’re pretty proud of the work we do and it’s what we focus on.’ ‘Tom’s place is the culmination we wanted to see in a job and shows off the best in all of our abilities,’ Ben adds.

Tom and Grace have named their home ‘sunahama no koya’ which means ‘sandy cabin’ in Japanese – a nod to the Japanese and Scandinavian design Tom is inspired by ‘with a bit of Aussie thrown in as well,’ he says, a twinkle in his eye. It’s not only a beautiful and functional family home, but also a showcase for 35º South’s sustainable style, design and craftsmanship.

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