Spicers signature retreat, Spicers Peak Lodge is where the Spicers Retreats story began. Peak Lodge was built from scratch with love, and a view to sharing the breathtaking, natural scenery of the Scenic Rim with you.
Spicers Founder, Jude Turner and her husband, Graham “Skroo” Turner both grew up in the Scenic Rim region, in Warwick and Stanthorpe respectively, so have always had a soft spot for the area.
The pair met in London working for Skroo’s then fledgling travel business, Topdeck Travel. They later married and returned to Brisbane, Australia, where they started their internationally renowned Flight Centre business, and settled to raise their young family.
Living in a rural suburb in Brisbane’s West, the children attended school and later university. Once the kids had flown the coup, however, Jude and Skroo moved into the inner city, which left them yearning for some country land where they could build a farmhouse for family visits.
They both felt drawn back to the beautiful but relatively undiscovered Scenic Rim region common to their childhoods. In 1999, they bought a mountain-top property called ‘Cedar Mountain’ for around $300k at auction. The property was known as ‘Cedar Mountain’ because of the wealth of cedar timber that had been taken from the site in the late 1800s-early 1900s. At the time of the sale, the only structures on the property were a few sheds and an old barn. These were retained and used as storage facilities. Beyond that, they would need to start from scratch.
The property is 8,000 acres in size and sits at 1100m above sea level. With a winding 11km driveway the development of the lodge took 2 years to complete.
The more Jude and Skroo visited the Spicers Peak property in those early days, the more the couple realised that if they built a farmhouse solely for their family, they were unlikely to visit often enough for it to be worthwhile. The opportunity to share the experience emerged; ideas started percolating of a boutique style getaway for the public.
Jude and her sister Ros immersed themselves into the design of Peak Lodge, giving life to Jude’s original vision of a boutique accommodation experience.
The stone that frames all fireplaces through the lodge was hand hewn in Scotland arriving as ballast on ships bound for Adelaide.
Jude found the stone and had it transported to the mountain taking 17 semi-trailers. Once here it took 55 trips to get the stone up the 11km drive to the plateau. With only one load falling off the truck.
In 2006 Spicers Peak Nature Refuge was established covering 2000ha of the 3000ha property. It has 7km of boundary with the Main Range National Park, meaning the area has significant conservation value and is protected in perpetuity through a Conservation Agreement between the owner and the Queensland Government.
This agreement binds all future owners to conserve the significant natural and cultural resources of the area, and provide for the controlled use of the land’s natural resources for livestock production, eco tourism and adventure activities. Jude is a passionate conservationist and went on to create a further 2 nature refuges at different properties.
