Susan and Simon Butt are the proud new owners of the former Victoria Inn on Auckland Street in Bega.
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The property dubbed "the oldest house in Bega" was originally built by Annie White in 1858 and was the first substantial brick building on the northern side of the Bega River.
The heritage-listed property was sold at auction by Guy Higgins from Burchell Higgins Property Sales on Saturday, July 2 for $489,000 after an exciting bidding war that started at $250,000.
Mr and Ms Butt from Spring Range just outside of Canberra, said they were feeling absolutely "thrilled" after the auction and were really looking forward to integrating themselves more into the Bega Valley community.
"One of the reasons we were drawn to it is that we have seen time and time again with some of these older buildings that some people just buy it for the land and they let the building go to such a dilapidated state that it has to be removed.
"If that happened here, I think Bega would just lose an important part of its history," said Ms Butt.
Around three years ago, the couple purchased a older property to knock-down and rebuild on Francis Hollis Drive in Tathra. Once their new home has been built in Tathra, the couple plan to retire to the coast and work on the restoration project.
Mr Butt has a number of family members already living in Tathra and has significant family history in the area, with his grandmother having been born in Bega.
"We have a long family association with Tathra and the Bega area," said Mr Butt.
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The couple also own two renovated fibro buildings in Tathra they rent out as permanent rentals. The property - called Tathra Cottage - used to be the old op shop in town.
Mr Butt has recently retired from working in the commercial construction industry and Ms Butt has been running a day spa from their lifestyle property in Spring Range.
The Auckland Street property will be a retirement project for the couple, who have a fairly long history of property restoration.
The desire to restore old buildings to their former glory also runs in the family, with Mr Butt's parents having purchased an old inn in the main street of Yass during the '70s that their daughter now owns and has been continuing to restore.
The couple bought their Yass property in 1987 and it was a very similar age and style to the Bega property having also been built in the 1850s.
"The ceiling boards in a lot of the rooms at the Victorian Inn are what they call quirk beadboard, and that's exactly the same board that was used in Yass," said Mr Butt.
The Yass property took them around nine years to restore and they lived in that property during that time.
They said the colour scheme and condition of both properties was very similar - taking into consideration the 40 years between the two restoration projects.
Both properties also presented similar challenges such as rising dampness and white ants.
Mr Butt said the first priority for the Bega property would be to fix the roof to keep water away from the building as a lot of old buildings crack and drop at the corners due to dampness.
"There's cracks through some of the walls and through the window sills and things like that, so it will just be making sure it's all stable.
"Then we have to focus inside where some of the floorboards are rotting because the bearing and joists are sitting on the ground effectively, they'll have to be reworked by digging it out and building a floor structure in there that will have a bit more longevity," said Mr Butt.
Our friends have always said that we make homes for other people, and make houses into homes so that's what we're hoping to do with this too
- Susan Butt
The couple said they were hoping to do the building on the right-hand side first and convert it into a permanent rental, expecting that process to take around 6-12 months. The other buildings would take significantly more time to restore, and the estimated total project time would be between three and five years.
Ms Butt said the plan for the second building was to create short-term accommodation for locums.
"We've had family that are surgeons and things that have had to work at the hospital and not have places to stay for the four-week periods," she said.
The couple have also been brainstorming ways to get some of the impression of the original style by joining the roofs together with a light structure and creating a front veranda just to show what it was originally like - depending on heritage approvals.
"Our friends have always said that we make homes for other people, and make houses into homes so that's what we're hoping to do with this too," said Ms Butt.
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