Nelligen castle in the hills

“It’s a journey,” Darrell said.

Construction of the house, admired by many as they drive on the Kings Highway, started on September 2, 1988, and is still going.

“We’re going to add a garage, two bedrooms and an office,” Darrell said. 

Darrell, a blacksmith by trade, designed and built the house after buying the 12-hectare property, then named Black Flat, in 1984.

Right from the start it was going to be different.

“We didn’t want a brick veneer tile type house, and we were going to build a log place, but white ants changed our minds and we built it out of rock, which we collected from different places.” he said.

“Outside is all granite, and inside is different rock.

“The walls are between two and three feet thick.”

The bathroom has white quartz walls and crystal quartz towel hangers, the laundry has cooked basalt walls and mahogany from the property is in many parts of the house.  

“I built everything, doors, cupboards, fittings, handles hinges.”

The home has two stories with loft at each end a cathedral ceiling in the middle.

Lisa is a skilled leadlighter, and her stained glass creations adorn the house, adding to the medieval theme that is repeated throughout.  

There’s a outdoor barbecue area, a large fish pond crossed by an ironbark bridge and a rammed earth blacksmith’s workshop.

“There’s nothing normal about it,” Darrell said.

With help from Lisa, Darrell has worked on the house every day for the last 28 years.

“There’s hardly been a day gone past when I haven’t worked on it,” he said.

“It’s about two-thirds finished.

“Now that I’m retired, I have much more time to work on it.”

The house’s fame preceeds it, as the Bossleys have found whenever they have travelled.

“We were up the top of Australia, and told people where we lived, and they said ‘anywhere near that place..’ and described our place,” Darrell said.

“People drop in at random now and then; that has been happening for many years.” 

The beauty and uniqueness of the home has led to at least one inquiry from a magazine about a feature article.

“We said no because it is not finished,” he said.

The house might be well known, but it is quite off the grid.

“We’ve got no TV or radio reception, and we get power from a generator,” Darrell said.

“We only get blackouts if we forget to put diesel in the genny.”

The Bossleys are here to stay, with their horses, dogs and birds.

“People wouldn’t have enough money (to buy it),” he said.

“I’ve put too much blood, sweat tears and toil in to leave it.”