DIVINE INTERVENTION

Maintaining a property as old as Australia’s first colony is not everyone’s cup of tea. No one knows this truth more than Jo Maxwell, who was the owner of Chapel House, a historic building in the NSW Central Tablelands village of Rydal. The renovations, gardening and general drudgery of tasks on a 200-acre (80-hectare) property are made all the more arduous when one’s fate is determined by an impulsive husband.

“Everyone delights in the story of my husband buying the property without telling me,” Jo laughs. “It wasn’t my decision … luckily it grew on me!” Jo’s husband, Michael, first came across Chapel House in a brochure pinned to a noticeboard at a neighbouring town’s petrol station during a boys’ trip to the region. A brief viewing before returning to Sydney had him