We arrive at the open for inspection, my stomach a pit of nerves, as we survey the other vehicles rolling up to view this historic home. Taking our place in the line up to the front door, we engage in COVID protocols before being permitted entry.
As soon as my husband and I step inside, I feel my heart quicken. It is a marvel. A place, urging me to look up and all around. To revel in all its historic splendour.

Only a few paces in and, I think, it is fortunate I am wearing a mask as my teeth begin to chatter. It is more, much more, than I'd anticipated. Never before, have I felt such an immediate, physical, emotional response in occupying a space. The impossibly high pressed metal ceilings, beautiful archways, tin dado walls, leadlight windows. From this moment, it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.
As I begin researching this historic home in Rokeby, built circa. 1908 – a place, I still can't quite believe is mine – I make contact with Warragul Library, State Library, West Gippsland Genealogical Society, Warragul and District Historical Society, Kurnai Elder Cheryl Drayton. Each, offering a piece of my home's history and the land on which it rests. I ask Jo Dickson, a dedicated local member of the Warragul and District Historical Society, what, she believes, is the appeal in connecting with architecture of the past.
"Architecture shows the period of time when a building has been designed. It shows the type of building materials used in that time period. According to the period of the architecture it gives an insight into how people lived in the past and the availability of finances to construct buildings in various localities. Looking at the architecture of a place brings us close to the past by questioning would we like to have been there then."
The history of my much-loved home begins at its original site on Smith St, Warragul, opposite the semi-gothic style Post Office of 1887. The block of land, originally housing stables, is purchased by dentist, Percy Trood, who engages undertakers and woodworkers, Miller Brothers, to commence building works in 1907.
The building, officially opening in May, 1908 - Mr Trood, who '...considers himself equal to any dental operation known to science' moves his dental surgery to this new location, making it open, not just to patients, but to any member of the public interested in witnessing a demonstration of the most up-to-date equipment…Mr Trood possess[ing] the first and only electrical light and motor installation in Warragul.' (The Narracan Shire Advocate, 12th May 1909).
More than one local newspaper reports on Mr Trood's splendid establishment. "[T]he beautiful smooth running little engine" used for gold fillings, crown and bridge work. "The electric mouth lamp" offering a better visual of the mouth, especially at night. "The electric fan…set in motion by simply pressing a button" providing a cooling draft on oppressively hot days. "The fountain spittoon…a masterpiece of modern ingenuity," used in conjunction with an "attached saliva ejector."
And Mr Trood, equally interesting, believed to be a "rather flamboyant character" apparently returning from a trip to America with "a diamond set in one of his front teeth." (The Warragul & District Historical Society Bulletin, 21st April, 1982). His waxed moustache, a work of art itself. Mr Trood, a thriving professional, existing in an era in which far-reaching claims are the norm. 'His surgery, he claims to be one of the best appointed in the southern hemisphere.' (The Narracan Shire Advocate, May 12, 1909).
He is a father, play-fighting with his "little fellow of four summers" in 1912, from which he sustains a scratch to the eyeball, requiring medical treatment in Melbourne. A charitable man; as two months later he donates his beautiful Wertheim Piano for the benefit of the local hospital.
For 16 years, he is an active member of the Warragul community, involved in Gippsland for 28 years. He is significant to the community and its history. And, a visionary. "The design of the house, we understand, emanates from Mr Trood's brain and his architectural skill has certainly effected a very imposing addition to the residential area of Smith St." (West Gippsland Gazette, May 12, 1908). The house itself represents something of Mr Trood's own style and character, as do the works of art hanging in his dental surgery, including those from his own brush.
Owing to an accident in which Mr Trood's leg fails to steadily improve, Mr Trood is forced to give up business and returns to Melbourne for treatment; the property, sold in 1918 to Alec Schindler, a neighbouring butcher. I imagine this next phase, the next life of my house. M. Schindler, in his butcher's shop surrounded by meat hooks and a saw dust floor, removing his apron, preparing to stroll along Smith St to home, carrying with him the smell of cured meats, remnants of saw dust on his boots. Words filling the space, different too; talk of up-to-date dental equipment replaced with that of quality meats and small goods, of ensuring corned beef and corned rounds are always on hand.
Changing hands again, the house is purchased by J. J. Murray, a property speculator, who, in 1922, sells it to nurse (Ma) Kelly. Nurse Kelly, repurposing the building as a Private Maternity Hospital. I imagine the wide hallways of my home filled with the sounds of labour, a baby's first cry, a mother's joy and the quiet exhaustion that follows.
It is with the next changing of hands, the private maternity hospital sold to Sister Shugg, in 1927, that the building gets its name, St Leonard's. Sister Shugg, enjoying a "well-earned" break before taking possession of nurse Kelly's "successfully managed" hospital. Prior to this, Sister Shugg leased 'Rongoa' private hospital in Victoria Street, Warragul. (West Gippsland Gazette, July 5, 1927).
In the retelling of history, public opinion would have you believe that the house in which I live is actually part of the old Warragul hospital, Rongoa. "Mick [Tymkin] purchased the old Warragul private hospital "Rongoa" which was sold for removal and transported to this block." (A History of Rokeby, A glimpse into the past 130 years, Phyllis Margaret May Winch, 2014)
With total admiration for the work involved in recording local history, I'm interested in the way history can become altered over time. Invested in the work of preserving local history for future generations, I ask Jo Dickson her thoughts on this.
"History can be altered over time by people making an assumption and others believing without doing any research to see if the statements are actually correct, this is a problem we see quite often on Facebook…"
Though the popular belief that my home is the former Rongoa hospital is inaccurate, it is thrilling nonetheless to discover a reference to my property and home in a treasured book of local history.
In many ways, perhaps being a mother of three young children, or because the notion of a dental surgery is not such a romantic one, I am most taken with the history of my home in its manifestation as a maternity hospital. The many lives not simply entering this space, but entering the world. But in 1940, as hospitals become even more central to the changing state of birthing practices, the maternity ward at the West Gippsland Hospital opens, lessening the demand for private hospitals and St Leonard's is closed.
From here, the building undergoes several manifestations: a dental practice once more, a photographer's, a credit union, office space and flats. Distinctive on Smith St, not simply for its design but as a remnant of the past, resting opposite the modern-looking Post Office, in 1982, the old, Edwardian building is purchased by Mick Tymkin, for its relocation to Rokeby.

In five sections, the old building is transported. I imagine parts of my home, overhanging the flatbed of a truck, making the journey from Warragul to Rokeby. Each piece being lowered into position. The way the building is put back together again. The blending of the old with the new. 
As a fellow lover of history, I ask Jo Dickson whether the notion of a historic home being split into sections and relocated to another site excites or horrifies.
“Rather than completely lose a historic home I feel it is better to have it relocated but that a record of its past should be kept. I know that with relocation the building will lose its integrity but that is better than a complete loss…”
And I think, too, about the way we leave our mark. The way we change a space, how a space changes us. About change and continuity over time. Mr Trood’s original design still in existence, albeit altered. The wide hallways of St Leonard’s private maternity hospital. The hint of dark green where the new white paint has been scraped away. The beautiful, tall trees, at its site at Rokeby, planted in another time. The names of someone else’s children preserved in concrete by the shed. The many lives.
How the talk that moves through these walls has already changed. To work and writing and school and children. To the slow and steady building of a farm, plans of mending fences and acquiring animals. How we might yet leave our mark.
But the beauty of this place, its appeal is not only the history of the building. It is the breathtaking beauty of the Baw Baw region. The rolling, green hills. A mix of bush and pastured countryside. The Mountain Grey Gums and ferny valleys at the bottom of the hill. The wombats and wallabies. The call of birds filtering through the trees as we walk along the Rokeby to Crossover Rail Trail. Remnants of a moss-covered bridge constructed in the 1880s. 
All of it, Kurnai country, Wurruk (land) inhabited by the Bratauloong clan for thousands of years. First Nations people whose long-held presence remains in the unification of all living things, in thoughts and deeds, in our acknowledgement of country. The many lives.
Indeed, it occurs to me as I research my historic home, that I cannot give an account of its history, and the land on which it rests, without acknowledging its roots. 
Realising a glaring gap in my knowledge, I interview Kurnai Elder, Cheryl Drayton, who openly embraces sharing her knowledge of country and the many uses and benefits of native plants; bush tucker on which birds and animals rely. She speaks of the ecology of the land, of the dreaming, her work in the community, the current state of affairs, the complexities of emerging government policy, of climate change. 
“Because it’s not just bush,” she says, “it’s a living entity that supports a fraternity of grubs and insects and so on and so forth and that’s what people don’t look at it.”
Her knowledge, passed down through the generations, is so vast, I find myself asking her about the future, as I consider why it is we turn to history; what we might learn. “Mother Earth is calibrating herself now, and so, the climate change that is necessary to…make [people] stop and think about what needs to be done is what she’s doing. So she’s creating floods…to actually get people to do things differently.”
I think of my home and of the future generations who will occupy this space. Their story yet to come. How they might leave their mark; how this history, and this place, might be preserved. 
And I have hope.