38 australiancountry.net.auHAVEN IN THE HILLS
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Simone had long
dreamed of owning
a Queenslander
when she found
Hillview tucked in
the green hinterland
behind Queensland’s
Gold Coast.
On any given day, Simone Williams may be
jetting into New York or touching down in
Tokyo as part of her day job as a Qantas cabin
service manager, but there’s always one place
she’d much prefer to be — her sprawling
Gold Coast hinterland property, Hillview
Homestead. “My husband, Bruce, and I bought
Hillview 14 years ago,” she explains. “I grew up
in Brisbane and always dreamed of living in
the country in a beautiful old Queenslander.”
Just half an hour from the glittering Surfers
Paradise strip, Hillview is a world away with its
rolling green hills and thousands of acres of
surrounding Crown land in the lush Currumbin
Valley. Once the heart of a thriving dairy farm
owned by one of the areas pioneering families,the 116-year-old homestead is resplendent with
its broad wrap-around verandas and intricate
timber lacework entry. It sits stately at the end of a
picturesque dirt road lined with verdant paddocks
dotted with grazing Braford cattle and the rustic
remnants of farming days gone by.
It wasn’t quite so picture-perfect when Simone
and Bruce, who is a director at a fi nancial services
company, were on the hunt for a forever home
a decade and a half ago. “I was living in Sydney
and Bruce lived on the Gold Coast when we got
engaged,” Simone says. “I said I’d move back
to Queensland if we could live on a farm, and
Bruce’s response was: ‘good luck fi nding a farm
close to the beach’.” Undeterred, Simone began
the search. “Every visit, I would sneak off