Mt Buffalo Chalet
Gardens Conservation Management Plan

Mt Buffalo Chalet
Gardens Conservation Management Plan

Parks Victoria

Inspiration

The Mt Buffalo Chalet and its garden were built in the early 20th Century quickly becoming a Victorian tourism icon, readily imageable as a European garden of great beauty in the wild of a national park.  While the building was long recognised for its heritage value, the garden was not. 

In preparing the CMP, Inspiring Place recognised the inherent heritage and social values of the garden and avoided the temptation to stamp a new ‘design’ on the place in the absence of an understanding of the past. .

Outcomes

The CMP is a comprehensive working document to guide the sensitive restoration of the gardens that goes beyond previous heritage assessments which gave scant attention to the landscape, without mention of their unique location in the ‘wild’ of a national park. 

The CMP gives Parks Victoria the guidance it needs to manage the European landscape they’ve inherited – a task outside their usual remit to manage the State’s natural landscapes. 

The jury for this award winning project stated, “Through an expert and sensitive lens, Inspiring Place has moved beyond the traditional requirements of a CMP...” to develop “... a meaningful guidebook for park rangers ... this approach has given these important gardens the best possible chance of being restored and maintained for posterity.”

Recognition

2019 Award for Cultural Heritage, Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (Victoria).