Duo converts old church into home

Bev Crossley and Eric Van Beurden have decided to put their beloved converted Catholic church at Tatham on the market after 30 years of calling it home.

Cathy Adams

A BEAUTIFUL former church at Tatham is looking for a new guardian.

Eric van Beurden and Bev Crossley lovingly turned the old Catholic church into a home and have lived there for 30 years.

They said the church still had a lovely atmosphere and they were sad to leave, even though the time had come to downsize.

“It’s very inclusive and has a lovely, tranquil energy. We’re on someone else’s sacred site and we respect that, especially if you think about all the prayers and praise saturated into these walls,” Ms Crossley said.

“And I think the person who buys it will walk in and think ‘this is my home’. We had that sense.”

The old church, located on Ellangowan Road, south of Casino, was built in the late 1920s from teak, pine and spotted gum.

The couple later converted it into a raised open-plan home using the features already present in the building, but at the same time had to make it ‘un-church-like’ in order for council to let them live in it.

“They suggested we lower the pitch of the roof, but I’d have rather put a match to it. We bought it because it was a beautiful heritage building, and we’d dreamt about living in something this unique,” Mr van Beurden said.

“And we’ve just had everything done – the place painted and the roof replaced.”

In addition to converting the church to a home, they have also made the property into a livingsupermarket and power plant, featuring a permaculture garden, koala food trees, a mini-rainforest and pecan plantation, as well as solar hot water and grid-interactive solar panels.

“We have a permaculture food forest with 30 to 40 different species of fruit. They’re all different varieties – some of them are things you’ve never heard of,” Mr van Beurden said.

“When we came here there were half a dozen trees. The garden took a huge amount of time to create, but now it pretty much looks after itself.”

While the couple aren’t in a rush to sell, they have created a DVD to give to potential buyers of the $985,000 property, and admit they did get a little teary watching it. “We’ve never felt like we’ve owned the place, just caretaking it. It’s going to be here a long time after us,” Mr van Beurden said.