In Tasmania, a Place to Watch ‘Nature TV’

While meandering past a quaint vineyard in the shadow of Mount Wellington they came across an empty parcel that would pull them, like a magnet, away from their high-pressure lives as child welfare workers in London.

The 30-acre property, with its duck pond and verdant green hills penned in by forests, was so appealing that they bought it on the spot for $150,000 in Australian dollars (about $80,500 in American dollars at the time), planning to make it their home one day.

It took six years, during which Mrs. Beswick completed her university degree and both worked, before the couple was ready to relinquish their urban lifestyle and move to Tasmania. “We lived quite competitive, ambitious lives like everybody else,” said Mr. Beswick, now 33.

For Mrs. Beswick, a South Africa native who is also 33, a home in the midst of Tasmania’s untamed beauty seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “I never thought I’d live the dream of living on such a large property in beautiful nature,” she said.

The couple moved in 2006, intent on building their home on the outskirts of the state capital, Hobart, a picturesque town of squat Victorian cottages and sandstone town houses. But as they surveyed their property, they were daunted by the challenge of constructing a home among towering old-growth gum and Eucalyptus trees and pesky local fauna — including Tasmania’s eponymous devils, furry creatures better known for their foul smell and ill temper than for being the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial. 

Luckily for Mr. Beswick, he had a college friend, Aaron Roberts, who was also from Hobart and a rising star in Australian residential architecture. 

The trio spent the next 12 months designing a home in one of the world’s most sensitive ecosystems — none of the 11 threatened plant species on the property could be disturbed — a painstaking process that cost 450,000 Australian dollars (about $356,000 at the time). It then took nearly 18 months to build the home.

The couple wanted a place that revolved around the kitchen — a nod to Mrs. Beswick’s childhood home in South Africa, where an outdoor cooking area connected seamlessly with the dining and living areas — while keeping a starring role for Tasmania’s wild mountains, rivers and valleys.

The angular two-story 3,725-square-foot house, which is coated in black weather-resistant paneling called Lysaght, sits atop a sloping green hill. The main entrance is a portico of celery pine that runs parallel to a two-car garage. The portico has not only views of a lush valley but, with its crackling outdoor fireplace, the roofed space has become a favorite place for the couple to dine and entertain.

Before reaching the sliding glass front door to the home’s interior, a visitor has to step off the portico’s dark wooden sidewalk and onto a bed of crushed limestone pebbles in an open-air garden of Japanese maples. The garden — one of two strategically placed atriums on either side of the home — is part of the architect’s vision to blur the lines between the indoors and outdoors.

“I’m interested in this idea of the house being a veil through which you reinterpret or re-view the landscape,” Mr. Roberts said. Through the glass door is the entrance foyer, which also functions as the dining room. It’s furnished with a nine-foot-long teak dining table that sits atop a brushed concrete floor opposite a floor-to-ceiling window. The glass wall allows the pair to indulge in a favorite pastime they call “watching nature TV” — using binoculars to keep an eye on the organic sheep, pigs and ducks they raise for food.