Family ties
You can live in the most beautiful mansion in the country, but that doesn’t make it a home. That’s the candid opinion of Kay Perry, matriarch, motivator and chief marionettist of the dynamic team behind the Olive Hills Estate wine label, a string of Valentine’s Artisan Sourdough Bakehouses and a smattering of hospitality ventures in Victoria’s north-east.
“It’s family that makes a house a home,” Kay says. “Our motto is family comes first and before any decision is made, the question has to be asked: How will it affect the family?”
Kay and her husband, Ross, do in fact live in a mansion. The imposing 1886 edifice stands sentinel on a rise beside the road into Rutherglen. It has been their home since 1997, when the Perrys moved in with their now adult children, Harry, Joe and Matilda, then aged seven, four and two.
It took Ross’s insight as a former builder to see potential in the homestead, however, as it had been unoccupied for the best part of a decade, save for rats,
