Hosting With Heart

In life, there are two kinds of people - the sayers and the doers - and architect and leading climate adaptation specialist Digby Hall falls firmly in the latter camp.

Having spent 30 years in the Australian property sector as a sustainability specialist and advocate, Digby works as a consultant specialising in managing climate risk in property assets through design, sustainability, adaptation and resilience planning.

He also works confidentially with corporate executives to help them deepen their appreciation of the climate risk facing them, and to craft personalised strategies that help drive meaningful change within their organisations.

Outside of this, Digby and his wife Katherine host a number of properties in Tasmania, giving them a unique insight into the most effective actions that hosts can take to minimise their environmental footprint, especially in the areas of food waste, energy provision, the purchasing of goods and services, and reconnecting us all with nature.

It was an absolute pleasure chatting with Digby earlier today and I hope you get as much value out of listening to our chat as I did participating in it.

Like many before them, it was the discovery of and love for a particular oceanside plot of land in Brooms Head, New South Wales, that ultimately led to the realisation of a dream future forever-home for couple Katie Clarke and Matty Neeson.

Having early in their relationship stumbled across the land that would ultimately become the wabi-sabi inspired, self-contained house now known as Boketto - meaning to 'gaze into the distance without purpose' - Katie and Matty set out to create a property layered with meaning.

Having finished what was a somewhat laborious process involving the design and build of the property in 2021, the results are breathtaking.

Every living space and window in the home frames a view, and draws you into its natural surrounds. Much of the furniture in the home has been painstakingly handcrafted using reclaimed timber and decorative items sourced during the couple's travels.

And the considered nature with which this property has been realised is now starting to pay off financially as well, with Katie and Matty now enjoying a steady stream of bookings largely from repeat guests, most of whom have booked directly.

I've been following Katie and Matty on social media since they formally commenced their endeavour as hosts just over a year ago, and have frequently marvelled at what a visually disarming yet fundamentally simple piece of architecture they've managed to create. I really hope you enjoy us reflecting on their journey in this episode today.

When it comes to running short-term accommodation, outdoor spaces are almost always lower on the priority list than a property's interior, but award-winning, Victorian-based landscape designer and seasoned host Kathleen Murphy is determined to change that.

After a brief stint in the corporate world, Kathleen trained in horticulture in the Dublin Botanical Gardens in Ireland, completing further studies with the Royal Horticultural Society and Melbourne's Burnley University following.

Having relocated back to Australia in the subsequent years, she established Kathleen Murphy Landscape Design in 2006 and has been designing gardens with her small team ever since, maintaining a strong focus on linking the architecture of the house and buildings to the surrounding landscape.

Despite her foray into hosting starting with her holiday property Inlet House in the seaside Victorian town of Inverloch, she recently took this off the short-term rental market in order to move into it with her family full-time, transforming her former primary residence in the Macedon Ranges into a stunning, self-contained getaway.

I've long-admired some of the incredible gardens Kathleen has cultivated over her professional career and it was truly a delight to be able to chat with her for the podcast recently.

The Wiradjuri word Girragirra means to 'be well, happy and merry' and it was with this spirit in mind that fourth generation regenerative farmers Wendy Muffet and her husband Kim built their luxury eco retreat of the same name, located in the regional New South Wales town of Forbes.

With their children having all left home, Wendy and Kim embarked on securing a piece of land for themselves that they could realise the dream of custom building two fully sustainable pavilions on - one for them and one for visiting family and other guests.

Thanks to the prowess of the highly experienced, sustainability-focused architect they engaged, the resulting dwellings not only met but in many ways exceeded Wendy and Kim's brief for a home and lodging that had minimal environmental impact, maximum comfort and was low maintenance.

Not only this, but the buildings have since served as the perfect backdrop for the many other productive activities going on on the property, including the cultivation of a thriving permaculture garden and the hosting of occasional workshops focused on cooking and other aspects of green living.

It was a real privilege having the opportunity to chat with Wendy a couple of weeks ago about her's and Kim's journey and I'm sure you too will get a lot out of this chat.

By the time I'd finished chatting with Tess Astbury and Ben Slore, the incredibly resourceful and consciously-minded couple responsible for establishing Huntingdon Tier Forest Retreat in Dysart, Tasmania, I'd realised this pair were truly a couple of kindred spirits.

With an unflinching commitment to sustainability and repurposing of materials, Ben and Tess, via Facebook marketplace, procured a decommissioned school bus otherwise destined for scrap metal and relocated it to a picture-perfect plot of land in the Tasmanian Southern Midlands.

What followed was a process of painstakingly converting the bus and immediate surrounds into a truly one of a kind, minimal footprint getaway for two, utilising found and secondhand items. This included the property's hot tub, which after much trial and error Ben managed to eventually set up to operate using the process of thermosiphoning, or in layman's terms heating without a traditional pump.

Now almost two years down the track, Tess and Ben have accumulated 262 Airbnb reviews with an average score of 4.98 out of 5 and were last year named finalists in the Airbnb host awards for best unique stay.

With their future plans including the set up of another converted bus on the same site, this industrious duo have a bright and creative future ahead of them. I hope you enjoy hearing all about their story in this value-packed episode today.

We all know the saying 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going', however in Kerry Williams case, when the going got tough for her travel-loving Mum, who has Mutliple Sclerosis, she got busy starting a business.

Kerry discovered the hard way that there was an enormous gap in the market for genuinely accessible accommodation. She'd stayed with her Mum in short-term accommodation that claimed to have certain accessibility features but in reality didn't and came to the quick realisation that something tangible needed to be done about that.

That was four years ago and the business she subsequently founded is the now multi-award winning Accessible Accommodation, part of the broader company known as The Accessible Group, which also includes another arm known as Accessible Experiences.

Since launching The Accessible Group, Kerry has grown the business exponentially and now has a team of 9 staff, all of whom bring to the table different lived experience of disability.

The Accessible Accommodation website now features over 200 listings, from hotel and resort rooms to independently hosted accommodation, each ranked according to a three-tiered rating system, also developed from the ground up by Kerry.

This is a woman who is determined to make the travel sector more accessible and she is someone who I have utmost respect and admiration for. I can't wait to see what she does next and I was delighted to have a chat with her last week, which I know you'll get a lot out of. Please enjoy.

Like many before her, it was being a Mum that ultimately led to Tania Walker's foray into hosting.

Originally from Perth, she eventually moved to Melbourne where she met and married her husband Matt. When her daughter Tess was a toddler, she met a local mum at the gym who happened to run a leading Victorian holiday rental business, which Tania was fortunate enough to be able to help out with.

Fast forward a number of years and once again, via a discount voucher won at a Mother's Day lunch, she was able to take part in a group stay in Merrijig, a stunning small town located about 7km from the entrance to Mt Buller, one of Victoria's most popular skiing resorts.

It was on that stay that she fell in love with this relatively unknown and untouched riverside hamlet, eventually leading to her and Matt purchasing the property they've now been operating with great success as a short-term rental for two years, Hume House.

It was a delight having a chat to Tania earlier today, who given her firm and ongoing commitment to inclusivity and sustainability is also part of our Hosting With Heart advisory group. I hope you glean some value out of our chat.

Steph King knows a thing or two about Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula. After all, she's lived there for most of her life and is part of a fourth-generation family known for cultivating consciously-minded businesses focused on giving back to this beautiful coastal region.

About 8 years ago Steph and her landscape designer husband Jason landed their dream property in the delightful seaside town of Ocean Grove, complete with two self-contained cabins ripe for refurbishment.

Without overdoing it and while raising two young daughters in the process, they worked to respectfully overhaul the cabins by way of fresh styling and a moderate renovation, enabling them to open to guests in 2016.

Since then, they've gone from strength to strength, having seized every opportunity possible to support and showcase products from local businesses to guests, all the while educating them about the local wildlife and the town and property's heritage.

The Woods was last year named the winner of the Victorian Tourism Industry Council's award for self-contained accommodation, an accolade that involves embarking on a significant and prolonged application process.

Steph has been an active member of the Hosting With Heart community almost since day dot, having generously lent her advice and support to so many other hosts, including myself, on many occasions. It was a long held goal for me to get her onto the podcast and I am so thrilled that I finally did. I hope you'll get a great deal of enjoyment out of our chat today.

Renee Thurston epitomises, lives and breathes the term creative entrepreneur. This is a woman as industrious and hardworking as they come.

Having over her life run many businesses of varying scales and sizes, she's now finally landed where, as a child, she said she'd always land and that is in the world of professional photography.

Just prior to that, however, she had been operating a short-term property management service for a number of owners right across Tasmania and at one point had 14 properties on her books.

That said, the advent of Covid meant she had to downscale that business, which she successfully did, enabling her to focus on her burgeoning photographic career and to ultimately purchase and open her own short-term rental, now known as The Wilds in Zeehan.

Renee is both a powerhouse of ideas and a truth-teller. In all aspects of her life she firmly believes in keeping things both real and fair.

It was such a pleasure having a chat with her a week or two ago, which I'm sure you'll really enjoy.

It's fitting in more ways than one that my guest on today's episode of Hosting With Heart, Rachel Walters, named her property as a welcome gesture towards those she shares a kinship with, because following our chat I also felt a real kinship with her.

Rachel, owner and manager of The Kindred, a warm and stylishly decorated apartment based in the Canberra suburb of Braddon, is a Sydney based former scholarship director and long-time devotee of all things pre-loved.

Having been fortunate enough to secure a piece of prized real estate in one of Canberra's most vibrant localities, Rachel took the opportunity to use the property as a canvas for her to fully indulge her love of secondhand furniture, artwork and homewares, purchasing only the linen and towels for the property new.

And the resulting interior is phenomenal - and completely original - a testament to her steadfast dedication to sustainability and to avoiding at all costs contributing to the thousands upon thousands of tonnes of furniture waste generated by each of our capital cities every year.

It was not only a pleasure, but a true source of both inspiration and motivation speaking to Rachel a couple of weeks back. I hope you enjoy our chat and please also check out her newly published article on the Hosting With Heart blog about how you, too, can create a beautiful, unique home exclusively using pre-loved items.