‘Every day is like a paradise’: Sydney family’s tree-change transformation
Sitting around the dining table in 2021, Anthea Stevanovic and her family decided to leave Sydney for a more self-sufficient lifestyle despite not knowing anything about farming.
They created ‘Thinami’, a Greek-style resort in the Northern Rivers that became a multi-generational love affair for the family.
Anthea, husband Aleks, mother Voula, stepfather David and sister Niki dreamt of living off the land and working together in a family business. After a year of searching for properties that met their extensive criteria, they found a run down seven-bedroom retreat in the Northern Rivers with three houses, a swimming pool, a shed and a studio.
Buoyed by the property’s potential, Anthea hand wrote a letter to the vendors introducing the family and their vision. While many ached to leave the city during the lockdown years for a tree-change, the family planned out how they would do it. The letter worked a charm and their offer of $2.25 million was accepted in May 2022.
“It was pretty dilapidated. But we just fell in love with it,” she said.
Aleks and David went ahead by one month to make the three houses more livable, in particular repainting the inside of Niki’s multicoloured cottage. They then moved onto the retreat, which was untouched since its 1980 build and featured salmon carpet and exposed brick walls.
David Miles, Voula Miles, Anthea Stevanovic, Niki Papanicola and Aleks Stevanovic renovated a resort in the Northern Rivers.Credit: Natalie Grono
The family set to work laying beautiful floorboards, updating the en suites, rendering internal and external walls and painting over them. There was a lot of painting, sealing and preparation. For the bedroom walls, two soothing colours were chosen.
“Aleks loved me when I asked him to do two colours,” Anthea laughed.
As for the grounds, they were completely overgrown. A vine had even surrounded four trees and suffocated them. A team of arborists helped clear the rainforest growth, and David and Aleks hauled up to four truckloads of green waste to the tip a day.
“We had agreed upon roles, we had a to-do list that we worked off every week, [and] we had a weekly meeting,” Anthea said.
The home before it was renovated.
One year and an additional $700,000 later the property has been transformed into a resort named Thinami, which means ‘strength’ in Greek.
“There’s quite a Greek influence … we had a really clear vision of what the retreat was going to be,” she said.
The path through the property now has a defined orchard of macadamia and pecan trees on its left, citrus trees and banana plantations on its right and numerous avocado trees peppered throughout.
Beautiful garden beds were restored, and they even found a water feature that was hidden in the dense vegetation.
“We actually took out every stone and cleaned every stone by hand and laid them back,” Anthea said, referring to the rock gardens that line the paths.
The swimming pool was green and had boulders blocking the entrance, so the family removed the boulders and fixed the ph levels of the water so it was swimmable, before repainting the entire area white.
“Now it feels very Mediterranean. We’ve got beautiful white lounges and it just feels really nice.”
The family tree-changed out of Sydney.Credit: Natalie Grono
David regularly photographs the wildlife including a resident koala.
Voula made her own jams from the abundant fruit trees. Coffee berries have been picked fresh from the trees on the property, dried out and made into coffee. Exotic species such as custard apples, chocolate sapote and Brazilian cherries continue to surprise them.
“There’s so much citrus we can’t pick it all,” Aleks said.
The retreat opened in October 2023, when Voula and her two daughters cooked for 25 people in a communal setting.
“It was amazing. What we wanted to do was bring people together. And having everyone that was staying here that didn’t know each other communally sit and have breakfast and interact with each other … everyone said how much they enjoyed that,” Voula said.
The family hosted a communal meal when the retreat opened.Credit: Natalie Grono
Anthea reflected on the transformation the property has undergone.
“It was a huge thing to decide to leave our entire life, move eight hours north and start a completely new life. None of us knew anything about farming or taking care of land,” she said.
“Waking up on this property every day is like a paradise. It’s a dream come true.”
As David and Voula want to retire, the family have decided to downsize separately.
The property at 273 Lindendale Road, Lindendale is now listed with McGrath Alstonville as expressions of interest with a starting guide of $3.5 million.
Selling agent Bill Johnston of McGrath Ballina/Lennox Head/Alstonville said the property is a rare natural beauty that can accommodate large groups of people.
“It’s a private 18 acres in the heart of the Northern Rivers.”