00:00The story of Jonathan Halls and Oakville began almost like a chapter from Don Quixote, One Man, driven by idealism
00:08and determination, setting out to rescue a fading beauty.
00:13Built in 1875, the 14-room, solid brick home at Millbrook had already fallen into serious disrepair when Mr. Halls
00:21discovered it in 1988.
00:23I had a look through it. I saw the holes in the floor. I saw the water in the basement.
00:29I saw the damage to the roof. But I thought these things can all be fixed.
00:37He spent most of his savings buying Oakville and would devote the next 38 years to preserving it.
00:43Um, well, I was just, um, um, enarmoured with it, taken by it. It was like, it spoke to me.
00:54Someone's locked the door. Oh yeah, that's all right.
00:58For some of those years, comfort was scarce. There was once no electricity, no running water, no heating and no
01:07toilet.
01:07This is going to be the kitchen. I don't know what the new people will do.
01:12After retiring, Mr. Halls spent 14 years living inside Oakville while continuing the restoration.
01:21That's not a very good room. It's got no light, but this room has light.
01:32So this is the room where I've been repairing the woodwork.
01:38So these are all windows over here.
01:41So that's, that's the new timber would be.
01:46The old timbers had rotted out because there was water in the basement.
01:50The toilet and shower remained outside alongside a composting toilet regularly visited by possums.
02:00Oh, there's possums in here. I'll put that down and add some possums in here, I think.
02:09And the whole water service is up, right up in the top of the roof.
02:14But before this, we had a bucket, which I raised by hand.
02:20I personally don't put too much emphasis on comfort.
02:25I think, I think many people in the world live in very difficult, primitive conditions and we don't have all
02:34these comforts.
02:35And so I take our comforts as optional.
02:39But as Mr Halls grew older, his family began to worry.
02:44At 76, he finally decided it was time to let Oakvale go after securing heritage protection for the property.
02:52The council advertised that it was considering listing of 106 properties around the Shire.
03:02And this was one of them.
03:05So I wrote a paper, 3000 words paper, supporting that, supporting the protection and explaining why.
03:15In five weeks, Oakvale attracted 1.8 million online views, 90 inspections and 14 offers.
03:22The house was eventually purchased by a Perth buyer who grew up near Ballarat and had fallen in love with
03:27the property.
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