There is a moment, when you first see The Earth Castle from across the water at dusk, when your brain gently declines to process what it’s looking at. Stone arches glowing amber. A structure that appears to have grown out of the hillside rather than been built onto it. A private lake in the foreground doing its best with the reflection. You think: that can’t be a house. It is a house. A 1,400-square-metre, 25-hectare, six-bedroom, seven-bathroom house in Bullsbrook, WA, and it has drawbridges.
Functional drawbridges. The agent mentions this almost in passing, between the living grass roof and the cascading indoor waterfall, as though a working drawbridge is the kind of thing that crops up regularly in residential listings. The waterfall is particularly worth dwelling on: an internal stream runs through the entry, audible as you move through the gothic arched doorways, filling the whole place with the sound of moving water. The spiral stone staircase winds up beside it. The flagstone floors stretch out below.
The gothic vocabulary runs throughout — pointed arches framing views of the bush, lion-head drawer pulls in the kitchen, a four-poster bed in one suite and a candelabra floor lamp that looks borrowed from a Venetian palazzo. It’s theatrical without being silly, which is a much harder balance to strike than it sounds. The kitchen alone — rich timber cabinetry, arched windows, a professional range — would hold its own in any architectural magazine without the castle context.
Below the main living areas, an undercroft corridor of plastered gothic arches leads to the wine cellar. The wine cellar leads to a secret room. This is not a detail invented for the listing; it is apparently just a feature of the house. The tree-trunk column standing in the middle of the flagstone corridor is also apparently just a feature of the house. Bullsbrook contains multitudes.
Outside, the private lake wraps around the bedroom suites, which open directly onto the water. The living grass roof above — trafficable, which means you can actually walk on it — gives a green plateau with views over the valley. The agent suggests yoga or cocktails. Both seem correct. This is a property that rewards commitment to the bit, and whoever built it was deeply, magnificently committed.
