Campbell and Caroline Michell have transformed a crumbling 1912 limestone church into a charming home in Pinnaroo, a born-again church.
Like many life-changing decisions, it was swift in the making, but slow in delivery. Campbell Michell was studying psychology at uni in Melbourne when he heard about a derelict church in his parents’ hometown of Pinnaroo in South Australia’s Murray Mallee region close to the Victorian border.
He put in a “cheeky offer” of $26,500 in 2014 and it was accepted. “What I didn’t know was that the Methodist Church had been quoted $50,000 to demolish the building, so my offer was a bargain,” Campbell says. “I’ve always been pretty handy and I like a challenge, so I decided to do it up myself, make it a born-again church.”
This is how Campbell and his English mate from uni, Ed Forster, came to move out to Pinnaroo, population around 800, to start work on its resurrection. “The church had been built in 1912, but a storm blew part of the roof off in the late 1960s, so the congregation built another building next door and the original was decommissioned,” Campbell explains. “It was in a pretty sorry state, with pigeons and white ants only adding to the issues.”
With a lot of enthusiasm, energy and help from YouTube videos, Campbell and Ed worked on the church intermittently and took odd jobs in town to help fund the project. Meanwhile, in the English city of Newcastle upon Tyne, Ed’s sisters, Caroline and Alexandra, booked passes for Coachella music and arts festival in California, USA. “We ended up with a couple of spare tickets, so I asked Ed to come,” Caroline recalls. “He invited his friend, who of course was Campbell, and we’ve been together ever since.”
After trying a long-distance relationship for a time, Caroline made the decision to move to Pinnaroo in 2018. “We were living in another house Campbell had bought and it was pretty ordinary,” she recalls. “So I put a bit of pressure on to get the church finished and he ramped up the hours from 2019.”
Campbell was hands-on at every step except for the plumbing and electricity. Using plans made with online assistance, he turned the main hall into the living and dining area, with three bedrooms and a bathroom on the second level and a study and attic on the third level. “We recycled materials as much as possible and kept all the stained glass,” Campbell says. “The floor of the main hall was on a slope, so people at the back could see the pulpit area. We made the decision to keep half of the church as it was and do the new build in the other half. We took up most of the floorboards, replaced them where necessary and sanded and relacquered the ones we could salvage.”
Campbell says he was often helped by older tradespeople in the town, who were generous with their advice and problem-solving. The couple say they’ve found a good circle of friends in town and they’ve become involved in many sporting clubs. Caroline volunteers with the local ambulance service and Campbell serves on the council. “If you’re going to live in a community, it just makes sense to have a say in the direction it’s taking,” he says. “It’s a good town and we love living here.”
“Everyone in town became quite invested in our progress,” Caroline adds. “When we finally finished, we had an open day and about 150 people came along to see what we’d done. It’s not surprising because most people in town knew someone who had been christened, married or had a funeral there.”
Along the way, ABC TV’s Restoration Australia program heard about the project – a born-again church – and began documenting it for an episode. “It was a good experience, but it’s ruined me for reality TV viewing,” Caroline says. “You do the same thing for the camera over and over again. But in a way it kept us accountable, as we had a deadline to work to.”
“We just squeezed in,” Campbell adds. “On the day of the final filming in 2022, we worked ’til six in the morning to get all the finishing touches done.”
The couple report there were a few surprises along the way. In the process of mending a crack on the inside of an external wall, Campbell was surprised to discover a postcard from the past. “I was poking around with a screwdriver when it clunked against metal,” he recalls. ”Turns out it was a time capsule in a flour tin the congregation had placed behind the foundation stone. It contained five newspapers from 1912 and one of them even has an ad in it announcing the first service in the church.”
Campbell and Caroline have left the time capsule in its place but covered it with glass to make it visible. In the process of repairing the floor, Campbell also found a board that had been signed on the underside by the people who had worked on its construction. “There were signatures from 1912, a renovation in 1965 and now I’ve added my signature,” he says. “I put a hinge on the board, so we can open it up and show visitors.”
As Caroline arrived in Australia on a working holiday visa, she took a job mowing lawns at a local turf farm to fulfil the farm work requirement for a visa extension. She’s now worked her way through the business and is part of the sales and marketing team. She and Campbell married in 2023 and are expecting their first baby in July.
“One of the bedrooms was designed as a cinema,” Campbell says. “It will probably become the nursery and we still have other jobs to do like installing proper air conditioning and heating. But, overall, I’m very pleased with what we’ve achieved.”
“I can’t believe we live in this amazing born-again church,” Caroline says. “It’s cool to remember how it all started and the people who helped along the way. For instance, friends helped us move the stone benchtop in the kitchen into place and Campbell made the bathroom vanity from a slab of wood.
With the experience gained from the restoration, a “spit-and-polish” job on their interim home and the work he does for other clients, Campbell now describes himself as a property developer and builder. He and Caroline are in the process of creating an accommodation venue on an 18-acre (seven-hectare) olive grove near town. Called Olivacres, they have approval for six cabins on the property. The first is a tiny house in a former Adelaide metro bus, but they also plan to add self-catering accommodation in five A-frames Campbell will build as time and finances permit.
While he says the born-again church project was enormously rewarding, these days he prefers new builds “where everything lines up and fits properly”. Although Pinnaroo is home for the foreseeable future, naturally Caroline misses family and friends back in England. Campbell jokes that the only thing that would entice him to move to the UK and attempt another large-scale restoration would be if they could find a castle in need of salvaging. “We did find one, but the price was five million pounds,” he says. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have the readies for that, but you never know what might turn up.”
