Pink Door at Port Willunga: How a South Australian couple renovated their forever home and holiday rental from 750km away
- Mar 1
- 5 min read
More than 750 kilometres separate Port Willunga on South Australia's picturesque Fleurieu Peninsula and Melbourne’s CBD.
A gap today brought together by a nine-hour drive or a 75-minute flight.
But for husband-and-wife renovators M & M during the Covid pandemic, it was distance that just couldn’t be measured.
Living in Victoria after work brought them back a second time five years earlier, the couple were forced to cut ties with what they always hoped would be their “forever home” – and popular holiday rental - in Port Willunga.
After lockdowns, border closures and guest cancellations, Red Door at Port Willunga, as they called it, had to be shut after 20 years.
It was a painful ending for what had been a thriving Airbnb and holiday rental property, beloved by families seeking a Fleurieu Peninsula beach escape.
“It was a strange time, when we experienced the disconnect as South Australians at heart and homeowners,” they tell Place Journal.
“We felt isolated, unable to be with our loved ones, completely out of kilter with the pandemic experience in SA.
“We pined for our home in Port Willunga.
“We still needed to be in Melbourne but increasingly came to the realisation that Port Willunga remained our forever place.”
But when one door closes, another one opens.
“We had plenty of time to think when you can’t go anywhere and in Melbourne (during the pandemic), you really couldn’t go anywhere,” they continue.
“It was during this time, staring at the same white walls, I felt an increasing need to bring colour into our little space.
“Dopamine décor, I later heard it called. The need to stimulate joy and happiness through colour.
“It makes sense, given the drudgery of those many months of lockdowns.”
It’s fitting the next door was pink.
Opening this one proved difficult, though.
It wasn’t all or nothing, but as months passed, it was almost now or never.
From Victoria, they made offers in a hot South Australian market on houses they’d never stepped foot in.
They had done similar with Red Door decades earlier, making the last few minutes of the final open inspection before hastily getting back on the road to Melbourne, while the auction they ended up winning was on that afternoon.
When the renovation started, they unearthed unearthing significant structural issues.
So it wasn’t the unknown that was disheartening.
But the rejection was. There was always a higher offer.
“Then on a whim one morning,” they recall.
“We put a shout out on the community forum to see if anyone was thinking of selling.
“At the same time, a post appeared about the possibility of a private sale.
“The lovely sellers really wanted someone who would love their home, and we were looking for a home to love.
“After our daughter briefly went through the house we made an offer, no building inspection, no inspection by us, and on a Sunday night in Melbourne, we bought our new forever Port Willunga home, demonstrating a complete inability to learn a lesson.”
But one thing the couple would soon learn was just how much love was needed.
Love that would, again, need to stretch 750km.
“I didn’t see the house until the day we settled,” she laughs.
Over two years, they travelled back and forth from Melbourne for weekends, attending to every corner of the 1980s three-bedroom, brick veneer home.
“This house is simply about choosing what we like – set up as a home, not restrained by trends, using lots of colour, less curating, more joy, keep footprint light, focus on sustainability,” the couple says.
“As time went on, we settled more into how we wanted our place to be – focused on small Australian businesses, supporting local businesses, beautiful bed linens and meeting our sustainability aim."
With the home set up for mixed use - a forever family home and a short-term holiday rental - there also was, and still is, a determination to “make it feel special for guests”.
They knew what they wanted, but they also knew they wanted to be able to create without a sole outcome in mind.
Enjoying the planning. Being open to the surprise in the result. Embracing the imperfect.
It’s a philosophy that was both head and heart.
Because there was nothing perfect about that settlement.
“We got the keys late afternoon and our furniture arrived the next day from Melbourne,” they recall.
“We unpacked, put the beds together, hung the blinds, and then discovered the back sliding doors were jammed, kitchen cupboards were out of whack, the dishwasher door wasn’t shutting properly, there were no kickers under the cupboards and the kitchen floating floors were floating off.”
Once things did get going, they were confident they could project manage the build from interstate.
But it didn’t quite work out like that.
“We were ordering extra tiles in the car driving back from Adelaide to Melbourne, photo updates were far from regular, calls went unanswered, we struggled to gauge progress and then, unexpectedly, two weeks after moving everything to Port Willunga, we had to pack and move house in Melbourne,” they recall.
An unexpected job loss, and then the South Australian Algal bloom crisis, just made things harder.
The unknown, for a while, did become disheartening.
“Still, no regrets,” they agree.
The challenges might have pushed that Port Willunga retirement plan – think days at the beach and nights at the Victory Hotel – back a little, but they didn’t stop the Pink Door dream from being realised.
Port Willunga is just 45 minutes from Adelaide and minutes from the renowned McLaren Vale wine region. With its pristine beach, clifftop views, and relaxed coastal lifestyle, the area attracts holidaymakers year-round - making it prime territory for a thoughtfully designed, short-term rental property.
Across a number of stages during those two years, they renovated the main bathroom and kitchen, moved the laundry outside and converted the space into a second bathroom, added a new deck and planted a pollinator and produce garden.
And that’s just to name a few.
All in their own distinct retro style, one that pays homage to the original home.
There was even a project titled “make it fun for the kids”, which involved restoring the old play equipment, adding a table tennis table and creating a glass mural on the backdoor that the little ones can paint themselves. Leave their own mark on the place.
Sure, there’s something beautiful in any direction you look, but Pink Door is a place for everyone.
Their family - and yours.
“We’ve had lots of lovely feedback from our guests, which is really the bee’s knees when you put your heart into hopefully offering a getaway that people feel is special and worth their precious hard earned dollars,” the wife says proudly.
As the saying goes, distance means so little when someone - or something - means so much.
Words: Jordan Pinto
Photography: Amanda East Photo, Kate Paneros
M AND M'S PLACE
Built: 1984
Land: 697m2
Bed: 3
Bath: 2
WHAT THEIR PLACE TAUGHT THEM
Look first.
Inspect the property for longer than 5 minutes – but we have no regrets buying sight unseen.
Do what you love.
Don’t follow trends – always do what you love! Avoid ‘fast furniture’, great vintage pieces can be found on marketplace and secondhand stores for the same prices.
Then let someone else love it.
Avoid single use items, sell what you don’t need/use.
Shop in support.
Do not buy ‘replica’ pieces, it’s unfair to the designer. If you can’t afford the original, buy something through a secondhand source, direct from the creative, small businesses that support artists. Shop local, support small businesses.
Scroll through to see what their place looked like before
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Renovating from 750km away introduces a layer of logistical risk that reshapes decision making. Distance demands trust in contractors, clearer documentation, and tighter budget controls. Unlike The Pokies where uncertainty is intrinsic and unmanaged, here variability can be mitigated through planning, communication cadence, and disciplined scope management.
Geographic separation of that scale underscores how regional coastal identity can remain distinct from metropolitan influence despite economic ties. Referencing Royal Reels as a structural analogy highlights how distance shapes mobility patterns, lifestyle tradeoffs, and market segmentation between tourism driven localities and urban commercial centres.