Bungala House history begins with a small cottage on Main Street in Yankalilla in the 1850s. This piece covers who built the house, who lived in it, what became of it, and how you can trace that story yourself, whether or not you book a cooking class. We teach in this house. More than once we have stood at the bench with flour on our hands and wondered about everyone who cooked under this roof before us.

We cook and write on the land of the Traditional Custodians of the Yankalilla district, and we pay our respects to their Elders past and present. Their story on this country is far older than any house on Main Street, and it is not ours to tell. This piece covers only the house built after colonisation and the families recorded by the Yankalilla and District Historical Society (opens in a new window), whose volunteers have done the patient work of keeping it.

Bungala House history: who built it, and who lived there?

Bungala House (opens in a new window), at 34 Main Street, Yankalilla SA 5203, dates from the 1850s. Our main source is the historical society’s Bungala House page (opens in a new window), which records that Henry Morris built a small cottage on the site around that time.

The Butterworth brothers, who ran the flour mill next door, bought the land in 1860. That one stops us every time: the district’s flour was milled beside the house where we now knead dough. Eli Butterworth enlarged the house about 1866.

Eli died in 1886. Harry Graham then bought the property for his brother, Frederick Malcolm Graham, known as Mal. Mal married Annabella Stewart Butterworth in 1887, and in 1891 the side wings went on, with a billiard room. The grounds grew to match, with big gardens, a croquet lawn and a tennis court. Mal Graham had been the first president of the Yankalilla Show in 1882, and he died in 1911.

From 1923 the house took in guests, and it ran as a guest house until the 1960s. It then stood empty and was damaged. Restoration was begun by M. Lines and B. Treloar and carried on by Mark and Jill Pearse. Today the house offers luxury accommodation and hosts functions and weddings.

In May 2023 the historical society launched Lorraine Day’s book, Bungala House: Historic Country Home in Yankalilla, at the house itself, hosted by the Jolly family. If you want the whole story told properly, that book is the place to start, and it is the work of a local writer and a local society.

Is Bungala House heritage listed, and why do the dates differ?

No, it is not heritage listed. A 2017 nomination to the South Australian Heritage Register was not accepted, so you will not hear us use that phrase about the house, however old the walls feel when you walk in.

The build year is the other question guests ask us at the bench, and the honest answer is that the sources disagree. Some point to the 1850s and some to the 1860s, which is no surprise for a house that began as a cottage and grew over decades. We say the 1850s and leave the exact year to the historians.

Names are handled the same way. We do not offer a meaning for Bungala or Yankalilla. If you are curious about how the place name has been recorded, the State Library of South Australia’s Manning place names entry for Bungala (opens in a new window) is the place to look, and the historical society can point you further.

What else can you see of Yankalilla’s history in a day?

You do not need to book a class to walk this story. Here is how we would spend a spring day in town.

Walk the Yankalilla District Heritage Trail

The historical society’s Yankalilla District Heritage Trail starts at the eastern end of Yankalilla at Bungala House, so the front gate is a fine place to set off. The Yankalilla to Normanville stretch is 3 km one way and walkable, and a short drive takes you on to Second Valley. Walking SA (opens in a new window) rates the Yankalilla and Normanville Heritage Trail as easy, a walk you do at your own pace with a council brochure, though that may be an older version of the route. Check the current trail with the society before you go.

Visit the museum

The Fleurieu Coast Visitor Centre and Yankalilla District Historical Museum (opens in a new window) is at 163 Main South Road, Yankalilla. It opens Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am to 2pm, and public holidays 10am to 4pm, and it closes on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The museum keeps the same hours and you enter through the visitor centre. You walk it at your own pace, group tours can be booked, and it includes a relocated church, a settler’s cottage and blacksmith shop, and farm machinery sheds. Call 08 8558 0240 or 1300 965 842, and ask at the desk about entry.

Research with the historical society

Volunteers from the Yankalilla and District Historical Society help researchers at the Yankalilla Community Library on Wednesdays, 10am to 12 noon. It is free and no booking is needed. To visit outside those hours, email yank.hist.soc@gmail.com, write through the society’s contact page (opens in a new window), or phone 0448 438 974. The society also runs the biennial Heritage Fleurieu Coast Festival, and showing up, asking questions and buying the local books is how visitors help keep this work going.

Come back for the Yankalilla Show

Mal Graham’s show is still running. The Yankalilla Show is run by the Yankalilla, Rapid Bay and Myponga Agricultural and Horticultural Society and falls on the Saturday of the October long weekend, at the show grounds at 1 Jervois Road, Yankalilla. This year’s show was on Saturday 3 October 2026, so it has passed, and the next is in October 2027, date not yet confirmed. Details are on the show’s own site (opens in a new window).

What is it like to cook at Bungala House today?

Bungala House is one of the venues we take our classes to, and it still feels like a house made for gathering people around food. We teach hibachi steak, sausage making, paella, pizza and native cooking there, and right now it runs our pizza with lunch and the hibachi steak masterclass. You cook, then you sit down to eat in rooms that have seen the Butterworths, the Grahams and decades of guest house visitors come and go.

Our Native Cooking Experience (opens in a new window) runs at Bungala House on Sunday 29 November at 12:00, at $180 per person, and that date is sold out. What we love about it is the meeting point: Australian native ingredients on the bench, inside a house with its own long Yankalilla story, a short walk from the historical society’s trail.

If you would like to stay, the house offers luxury accommodation. The South Australian tourism listing (opens in a new window) gives accommodation from $200 to $400 a night and describes 4.5 acres of gardens, with the beaches a five minute drive away and Adelaide about an hour. The office is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, on 0402 676 210. Beaches, birdlife and wildlife are what bring most people to this stretch of coast, and a morning on Normanville beach pairs well with an afternoon in the past.

So here is our one ask: keep an eye on the Native Cooking Experience page (opens in a new window) for the next date and book your spot. Hands at the bench, a long table set in a house that has been a Yankalilla home since the 1850s, and a seat waiting for you.

See every class at this venue (opens in a new window)