This grand estate is a spectacular destination within the Southern Highlands. Explore the iconic Berkelouw Book Barn. Dine at Bendooley’s restaurant. Enjoy a wine tasting in the Cellar Door. Stay in luxurious cottages within the beautifully preserved 200-acre property. Take in the beauty of the soaring ceilings and spectacular interior spaces of The Stables.

Bendooley Estate is Paul Berkelouw’s childhood home. It’s the place where his father, Leo Berkelouw, built up the family book business that had started as a humble proposition in Holland in the early 1800s.

Today, Bendooley is known as one of the premier rural estates for weddings in Australia. Two-hundred years ago, a special wedding also played a part in Bendooley Estate’s evolution to become the Southern Highlands most desirable estate.

More than two centuries ago, Bendooley Estate was part of a large tract of land granted into private ownership by Governor Lachlan Macquarie. This original legacy can be still seen today: the grand Georgian homestead built from convict-hewn stone, the stately European trees and the magnificent cool-climate gardens across the private grounds.

Originally, the land was granted to Sir William Henry Moore who later passed the Estate on to his sister, Anne, on her marriage to William Cordeaux in 1818. Cordeaux went on to become the Deputy Assistant Commissioner General for the colony of New South Wales. Bendooley Estate remained in the Cordeaux family until 1919, when it was sold to Sir James Murdock, who planted the avenue of European trees that still line the Estate’s entrance today. Steeped in history, the gardens are a fine example of early 19th-century geometric style and the property’s marvellous pine and oak trees are among the oldest in the country.

Almost sixty years would pass, before a fifth-generation antiquarian-book-dealer, Leo Berkelouw, enters our story. With a thriving book business in Sydney that required larger quarters, he purchased the property. He relocated his family and books to Bendooley Estate and so began the inception of the Berkelouw Book Barn.

For the past forty-years, within the Estate, the iconic bookstore has operated successfully as a new, rare, second-hand and antiquarian bookshop – originally with a quaint teahouse and now with an atmospheric restaurant and the Cellar Door. It has evolved from a celebrated Berrima landmark into a popular tourist destination. 

The Berkelouw’s long-treasured Book Barn, sitting in the middle of their magnificent 200-acre farm seemed like the perfect place to create a unique wedding and event venue that would provide a beautiful place to celebrate with friends. Paul and his wife Katja harnessed their passion for viticulture and paddock-to-plate food, remodelled the Book Barn and reimagined their beautiful heritage homestead and gardens, planted a vineyard, built a stunning cellar door and luxurious rustic-chic cottages for guests, and put together an incredible team of professionals.

Bendooley Estate as it stands today is the incarnation of one couple’s innovative dream to preserve tradition while embracing change. Books are still the beating heart of Bendooley Estate — they are a part of the scenery and the form the very fabric of the place.