As the Ballarat City Council pushes ahead to permanently protect an 1860 homestead, the owner says he is doing everything he can to save the house but a full renovation is unaffordable.
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The council is seeking to change the Ballarat Planning Scheme to include the Lintel Grange homestead and agricultural outbuildings in its heritage overlay.
It has found the Addington site to be of heritage significance following an application in June to demolish the homestead and agricultural building.
The council says the homestead, constructed mostly of bluestone, is of aesthetic (architectural) significance as example of a restrained classical mid-Victorian homestead, with the use of Mount Bolton white granite of "particular interest".
It has identified part of the property, at 127 Edmonston Road, is of historical significance as an early small farming enterprise established before the first of the Land Selection Acts in 1860.
Lintel Grange owner Charles Edmonston, a sixth-generation farmer who grew up on the property, said he was working with the council to try and get the interim heritage overlay removed and continue his plan to build a new house.
He said the homestead was unlivable due to a substantial underground cellar, which was added about 1870 to 1900, filled with water during wet winters because it tapped into a water table.
"If we can't renovate, the house will slowly deteriorate. If we are able to work with the council we could reuse the bluestone," Mr Edmonston said.
He said he received a builder's quote of $1.7 million to fix the internal mould, rising damp and underground water issues.
He said renovation works, including fixtures, fitting and benchtops, were not included in the quote.
The Edmonstons have already spent close to $30,000 on options to keep the house.
"It's much easier and cheaper for us to keep the four front rooms and build an add-on. That makes 100 per cent sense. That's easy to do and the paperwork would not be there," Mr Edmonston said.
"It would be a quick process but the foundation of the house is unlivable and we just can't afford to renovate it at that cost."
Mr Edmonston said a new house could not be built elsewhere on the property due to the wind turbines and paddocks zoned for centre-pivot irrigation.
"Putting a house in the middle of irrigation would be a terrible business decision and anywhere else on the farm we have hills right up to the turbine and I don't want to live under a turbine," he said.
"We've got highway frontage but it floods down there with the creek. Where the house is situated is the ideal block."
Lintel Grange has remained in the Edmonston family since it was purchased in 1856 by Charles Edmonston, who was from Glasgow, Scotland, and became an influential pastoralist and Ballarat shire councillor.
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Mr Edmonston said the part of the homestead's history would be incorporated in the proposed new house.
"We're trying to work with council. We're painting the picture of the story of the homestead still with use of the bluestone in the new build," he said.
"We're trying our best but everything keeps getting knocked on the head. We're certainly working with the council to work out what we can and can't do going forward with it."
The planning scheme amendment process to protect Lintel Grange has reached stage three where the council will consider submissions received during the public exhibition period.
Mr Edmonston said it would take 12 months to find out the future of Lintel Grange.
"At the end of the day it's certainly unfair that we don't get a right to say what we want to do with our house, our land from that side of things, but I could also respect everyone's opinion that it is a beautiful looking house from the outside but people don't know what's involved in renovating."
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