A wedding setting for incurable romantiks or a park in which to wander and picnic or see the galleries or as a corporate venue or for a dining experience, all this and more is Montsalvat.
A short drive from Melbourne, in Eltham, is an acerage with the artists' colony of Montsalvat where a cluster of dwellings lie on a grassy slope where a Gothic fantasy, in stone, rests alongside little French provincial cottages in contrast to a string of naive farmhouses.
Justus Jorgensen was the founder, who, with a group of associates, began building this labour of love in 1935 and he recreated a quaint neo-European enclave. Cutting edge architecture was not for him and he 'grew' this anachronistic settlement which nowdays has become a heritage property for us to enjoy and support.