The farmhouse escape where Arcadian dreams come true

Hotel review: Dairy Flat Lodge and Farm

Where: 238 Dairy Flat Road, Musk, Victoria

How much: Two-night packages start at $2000 for two guests, including concierge service, a farm tour, cooked breakfasts, and a Farm House dinner.

The Lake House Hotel at Daylesford in Victoria - which is in the midst this month of 40th birthday celebrations - is a legend of Australian hospitality, the creation of Alla and Allan Wolf-Tasker. If you're a Master Chef fan you'll have a sense of the indomitable Alla, a regular judge over the years. Her daughter, Larissa, is the second generation putting heart, soul and incredible warmth of personality into this singular enterprise - which now includes Dairy Flat Lodge, a farmhouse transformed just before the pandemic into satellite accommodation designed for groups of friends and family to hang out together apart from the busier Lakehouse, but amid the same high-end standards (you can also book as a couple or smaller group). It is also another chapter of the Wolf-Tasker dream come true - a place to grow food for their guests on a farm following regenerative practices and forging deep connections with the local community.

The view out the window of my suite is across vines of chardonnay and pinot noir, towards a field where a tiny herd of cattle from Brooklands farm up the road are agisting. The lodge is set on 15 hectares in the Wombat State Forest; two hectares are dedicated to growing food for the two-hat Lake House restaurant, and for Dairy Flat Lodge. There are olive groves, orchards and beehives, and even a bakehouse on site, where by dawn each day croissants and bread - made from non-GMO wheat and slow-fermented sourdough - are emerging from the ovens (you're encouraged to drop by and grab a pastry on your early morning walk). Former owners established hedgerow gardens, a delight to wander through, as though a slice of Versailles has slipped through a wormhole and you might see Marie Antoinette appearing around the corner.

An open fire crackles at us as we step into the living area, a warm and cosy expanse full of beautiful things, from artworks on walls - some of them by the late Allan Wolf-Tasker, an acclaimed landscape painter - to ceramic pieces by local potter Bridget Bodenham and an army of armchairs and couches in gorgeous fabrics and styles that create their own little sitting nooks about the place. The big open-plan kitchen and dining area is custom-made for communing; you can chat around the island bench as your concierge prepares literally farm-fresh food, or around the table, where inventive centre arrangements are as likely to involve vegetables - I'm talking heirloom carrots and silver beet - as they are flowers, all grown on the farm, of course.

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In the main house there are four spacious king rooms, all with ensuites, big windows and their own interior decoration across light fittings, fabrics, furniture and art. Divine. My room is one of two vineyard suites in the converted barn out the back, with a modern four-poster bed, sitting area and bucolic floor-to-ceiling views, including from the free-standing tub in the bathroom, which at one stage has calendula flowers and rose petals in it for an in-suite spa treatment that involves a chakra-connecting dip in the bath.

Come meal time, a smorgasbord appears like magic, of wholesome yet refined dishes made by the Lake House kitchen with finishing touches performed by our concierge. One lunch time, we serve ourselves from bowls of lamb shanks with braised chickpea, cauliflower salad and couscous with pomegranate seeds, and slather slices of fresh sourdough with whipped goats cheese. On our last night we dine at the Lake House restaurant, a 10-minute drive away, where difficult choices must be made from the four-course menu, which features winter vegetables harvested in the past 24 hours from Dairy Flat farm, as well as produce - think Berkshire pork, cockerel, blue fin-tuna and more - sourced from sustainable suppliers locally and beyond. Back at the farmhouse, we are spoiled at breakfast next day with lashings of crispy bacon, beef and pork sausages, farm-style pancakes, paprika-roasted mushrooms, poached eggs and fresh fruit. We pile our plates high.

During three days of healthful eating, winner of the most-virtuous prize is a breakfast drink of freshly picked rainbow chard, kohlrabi and kale. Scary Green Juice, our concierge calls it. And we all drink to that.

Explore more: dairyflatfarmdaylesford.com.au

The writer was a guest of Luxury Lodges of Australia