Following its redevelopment announcement in 2024, Bullo River Station, a sustainably-driven luxury lodge and remote working cattle station in the heart of Australia’s outback, is now well underway with the renewal of its homestead and guest accommodation, and has unveiled further plans ahead of its May 2027 reopening.
Currently closed for the 2026 season, the 400,000-acre working cattle station and member of Luxury Lodges of Australia is undertaking a sensitive transformation of its homestead and guest accommodation, with interiors led by stylist and designer Sibella Court; an evolution that elevates the guest experience while honouring legacy and remaining deeply grounded in place.
Nearly a decade of significant investment in pastoral infrastructure, the guest experience, and conservation initiatives across the property in partnership with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, co-owners Alexandra and Julian Burt are now turning their focus to the heart of the property: the homestead itself.
Elevating and Expanding the Homestead.
The redevelopment of Bullo River Station’s homestead, a true outback home, honours its legacy while thoughtfully refining the way guests move through and experience it.
The new guest rooms now span two guest wings, carefully maintaining Bullo River Station’s intimate scale of just 12 rooms while creating a greater sense of space and connection. Each room is almost double in size, increasing on average from 20sqm to 39sqm, with significantly expanded outdoor areas. The result is accommodation that feels more generous and considered, with larger bedrooms and bathrooms and dedicated spaces to unwind, all while remaining true to the spirit of the station.
Two of the 12 rooms have been designed to flex for family stays, while one of the new suites accommodates guests requiring greater accessibility, crafted with the same warmth, material richness and artisanal detailing as the rest of the property.
The new look homestead also features an open kitchen, an anteroom for gathering and planning the day’s adventures, a characterful library and bar, a lounge and multiple breakout spaces designed for retreat and quiet reflection.
The existing swimming pool, firepit and outdoor lounges remain central to life at Bullo River Station, now further anchored into their surroundings through thoughtful landscaping enhancements.
New landscaping also introduces a series of ‘green rooms’, framing views and creating moments of pause, discovery and connection to the vast surrounding landscape and open skies.
Celebrating place. Nature-led Design by Sibella Court.
Australian interior designer Sibella Court, who first articulated Bullo’s layered design language and DNA in 2018, shapes its next phase alongside architects from Perth-based MJA Studio and Broome-based Laird Tran Studio.
Informed heavily by story and place, Court’s interior direction, shapes and silhouettes continue to draw on the Australian vernacular, Bullo’s majestic landscape and big open skies, bushcraft, heritage trades and rural hospitality. The rich colour palette was developed from natural elements, locations and finds across the property, and Court continues to hero humble materials that patina with age, antiques, and traditional craftsmanship of leatherwork, blacksmithing and woodworking, each chosen not just for aesthetic appeal, but for its resonance with the country around it.
“Bullo is not a place you design over,” says Sibella Court. “It is a place you listen to. The landscape is powerful, elemental and deeply storied. Our approach has been to allow the materials and spaces to feel as though they emerge from that country. They are textured, grounded and quietly refined. It remains a true station home, just with a greater sense of immersion, generosity and connection to place and the outdoors.”
She continues, “The redesign is a true celebration of Bullo River Station, where built form and homestead materials are intrinsically tied to the land, and where every object carries meaning, memory and a sense of discovery.”
A Working Station. A Conservation Landscape. A Living Story.
Bullo River Station remains, first and foremost, a working cattle station and an important conservation landscape. Its partnership with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy continues uninterrupted throughout the redevelopment.
Energy efficiency remains a key focus, with design strategies aimed at reducing cooling demand, increasing water capture and strengthening solar power generation, reinforcing the Station’s long-term commitment to responsible stewardship.
“Welcoming guests to our home in the outback has brought us immense joy since becoming custodians in 2017,” said Alexandra and Julian Burt. “Nearly 10 years on, so much has changed, and yet Bullo is as familiar as the day we first saw it. That’s because the power and rhythms of the station and its extraordinary setting outshine any of its human-made structures. Our hope is that guests returning to Bullo in 2027 and beyond will feel that it is both exactly the same, and yet also better. And for new guests, the Bullo magic will be as amazing as ever. They haven’t missed out.”
On their partnership with Sibella, they said: “Working with Sibella again has been important to us. She intrinsically understands what Bullo stands for, its history and its character, and she shares our belief that the design should always feel grounded in this country. There is no better storytelling designer.”
Bullo River Station reopens in May 2027 following the completion of the redevelopment. Reservations for the 2027 season will be announced in due course, with further updates and design details to be shared later this year.
