Hi, I'm Eileen
With my late husband John, we created and designed our home and garden venue, which I feel the need to now share with others, and what better way to this, but open up my heart and space to you.
Our vision was the drive for what you can now soak up on one of the most memorable days of your life. You can enjoy the full garden, hire part, use the modern barn, the wedding studio is available – all you need is your food, beverages and guests. Oh, and don’t your perfect photographer. The scenery here demands it. You will not be disappointed.
Your magic day, gives me the purpose to keep creating John’s and my vision. Thank you. I hope you enjoy as much as we did and I do.
Our History
The Joheen Estate was originally a pig farm back in the 1970’s, and in the old house on the property, cement bricks were made that can now be seen in the walls of the Oxford Museum. Eileen and John became the proud and worried owners of a property that was dilapidated and in need of a lot of development. But that did not stop this family.
Joheen Estate was created in the early 1980s as a Deer farm and still is today. Previously the property was part of a larger entity and run as a pig farm. My late Husband John, and I took over a very untidy piece of land where the broken down gorse fences were buried in the soil and took a lot of physical and tractor work to remove them, a long and tedious job. A fallen down Cow shed with broken fencing and concrete flooring was removed from the area which is now part of our living room.
Half way down the lawn area was a steep bank. We could not afford to put a retaining wall and eventually came across soil being removed from the shoulders of roadsides that the local council were dumping into a waste area. We saw this as wasteful and quickly directed them to a new dumping area... our bank for our lawn extension!
It took a decade before more more loads of soil got carted in to form the present Rhododendron gardens and a Cosy dell area where winter roses now bloom throughout the winter beneath a range of specimen trees with largely dahlias, rhododendron's and roses glorifying the north facing bank.
A circular lawn that leads through cherry trees up to the main lawn is surrounded by more garden. It was created in a hollow where a railway in the 1800s ran and continued on through the farm to serve a Timber mill for transportation. Our farm of 51 hectares used to be covered in a pine tree forest until a fire destroyed it in the late 1800's forcing the closure of the railway and hence the forest eventually became farmland . There are stills signs of where the railway ran. However it looks beautiful today with some of the railway sleepers used to line the pathway and form steps in Cosy dell.
The homestead was planned, drawn up to scale by my Husband and myself , checked by an Engineer , approved by Council and eventually got started in early 80,s You wouldn't be able to do that today! However finances were tight, interest rates at 22% and we had borrowed the max for the farm so we could only carry out small portions of the build each year. The entire build was done by my husband and father and one other builder. To complete the upstairs framing some years later we brought in 3 builders and once they did their bit, my dad and husband completed the rest. It took 15 years at least to achieve the greater part of the house but not completed until recently. My 2 children had started high school by the time we could afford carpeting the house. Local builders helped with the interior architraves which we had resembled the old Estate Homesteads of England. This was carried through each room with lovely cornices and finishings.
The garden meanwhile was given lip service as the farm was not making money and interest rates were stifling, so we both held down jobs as secondary Teachers for many years. I left after 12 years for a better paying career with Air New Zealand and held onto that for 13 years. All along we played for time, worked our way through and eventually got there but not until my husband sadly passed away at the age of 67 yrs in December of 2016. It was a huge loss. I completed the entire project plus some earthquake cosmetic repairs and painted the house, unit, garage over 2 years after John passed away. My way of coping.
Friends of friends have come here to view the property and eventually marrying here. To date there have been three weddings. Guests have been "awe inspired" they tell me. I never kept photos as never envisaged establishing this garden as a venue. So photos to date of weddings are few. I need more, so come along!!
After so many struggles it is wonderful now to have a genuine purpose to continue working here and to further improve and keep beautifying the grounds to enable couples to enjoy the happiest day of their lives in beautiful surroundings. I look forward to these happy days and working in with couples wishes. I hope they come to love this place.