National garden treasure Glenholme, the 1870s grand Victorian Ballarat residence, listed with $2.5 million asking price

Glenholme, the 1870s grand Victorian Ballarat residence, has been listed with a $2.5 million asking price, most likely a historic house record for the district.

It's been with the Cuthbert family since 1901.

It was first occupied by accountant John Cuthbert, the son of Henry Cuthbert, who’d arrived in Australia in 1854 and lived in Beaufort House.

Hidden behind a white paling fence within a meandering garden, the grand six-bedroom Victorian house is wrapped in wisteria.

There are three reception rooms comprising the salon with white marble fireplace and bay window, the sitting room, which features hand-made copper-plated book shelves and a black marble fireplace, and the stately dining room with open fireplace and gas heating.

Its kitchen has been updated.

Exotic trees, shrubs and old-fashioned flowers create a romantic National Trust-classified garden – which is possibly one of Victoria's finest intact examples of a late Victorian suburban garden, according to the garden historian Peter Watts, who said in 1980 that it was of national significance.

It's been listed through Tony Douglass and Tim Valpied of Hocking Stuart Ballarat.

The suburban villa was built for the merchant John Joseph Goller, a convenient distance from his warehouse in Lydiard Street North. The family had Gollers Wholesale Wine & Spirit Merchants, which was established in 1855.

The radicalterrace website has reported Ballarat’s most expensive home sale is currently on Wendouree Parade, which fetched $2.23 million in 2010. Set back from the road and the banks of Lake Wendouree, the 1888 house had been altered moderately in the 1930s. With four-metre-high ceilings, detailed plaster and paint work, arched doorways and stone fireplaces, the 424-square-metre six bedroom house had been listed with $2.7 million plus hopes in 2009.

The $2.23 million purchase was bought from the Deam family by the Ballarat estate agent and farmer Stewart Gull, who played for South Melbourne and Melbourne in the 1970s, and his wife, Sue.

But Property Observer is aware of a $2.4 million in March this year of the Invermay mansion, Whistlers Run. It was a five-bedroom modern mansion, previously home to local businessman Gavin James.

The Robert Andary-designed house, just five minutes from Ballarat on Pyrenees Vista Close, came with a price tag of $3.5 million. Whistlers Run was marketed as a semi-rural retreat, with a 10-car garage, saltwater swimming pool, six bathrooms, three living areas and floor-to-ceiling windows with views to Ararat and Mt Langi Ghiran. Its tallowwood floorboards are reclaimed from the seats at the Melbourne Cricket Club Members Stand.

Property Observer is also aware of a higher sale on Lake Wendouree when $2,825,000 was paid in late 2007 for a house with 53 square metres of living space, an indoor pool and a tennis court on a large block.