Pioneer Cottage is a heritage-listed homestead at 5 Ballinger Crescent, Buderim, Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built . It is also known as JK Burnett (and family) residence. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
History
The residence now known as Pioneer Cottage was erected probably in the early 1880s for Buderim Mountain settlers John Kerle Burnett, his wife Ann North and family. It remains one of the oldest surviving sawn-timber houses on the plateau, and currently functions as a house museum and headquarters of the Buderim Historical Society.
JK Burnett was the eldest son of schoolteacher John Burnett and his wife Jane Kerle, who with their 9 children emigrated to Queensland from Somerset, England, in 1866. They were accompanied on the voyage by Ann North, whom JK Burnett married in 1867. The Burnett family took up land at Burpengary. Several of the sons gained experience in the sugar mills around Caboolture and in the Tingalpa-Ormiston district, and became closely connected with the development of both the sugar and timber industries after the Separation of Queensland - on the north coast at Buderim Mountain, and at Wellington Point southeast of Brisbane.
From the early 1860s, Buderim Mountain had been extensively logged, principally for the fine stands of red cedar and white beech, which was shipped to Brisbane via William Pettigrew's wharf on the Mooloolah River. In 1870 the plateau was opened for selection. Many of the first selections were taken up purely for their timber resources (e.g. William Pettigrew's and Grigor's selections), and early agriculturalists made an income from timber while clearing the land. By the mid-1870s, sugar cane was grown extensively in the area, with planters utilising South Sea Islander labour. Buderim Mountain sugar planters John Fielding and his son-in-law Joseph Chapman Dixon, established the mountain's first sugar mill in October 1876. At that time John Kerle Burnett and his brother Harry moved from Burpengary to Buderim to take up work at Fielding and Dixon's mill. JK Burnett's wife and young family arrived a few weeks later. Initially they resided in Thomas Ridley's house - most likely the small slab house which Ridley had erected on his selection (portion 45, parish of Mooloolah) by July 1874.
In November 1878, John Kerle Burnett purchased portion 49, parish of Mooloolah, for , obtaining the deed of grant in March 1879. The block was part of an earlier forfeited selection, half of which () had been reserved for school purposes in 1877, and the remaining sold to Burnett. It was centrally located, adjacent to the school reserve, and at the intersection of two principal roads (now Main Street and Ballinger Road). On part of this land Burnett built his family home (the present Pioneer Cottage), probably /83. In the Caboolture Divisional Board Valuation Registers of 1881 and 1882, portion 49 is recorded as unimproved. There does not appear to be a record for 1883, but by 1884 the property was improved with a sawn house and stables - likely to refer to Pioneer Cottage. Early in 1882 JK Burnett raised a mortgage of on the property, which may have been associated with the construction of the house.
The house was built of local timbers - tallow wood (eucalyptus microcorys) for floor bearers, white beech (Gmelina leichhardtii) for floors, walls, and ceilings and red cedar (Toona australis) for joinery - thought to have been felled on the property or acquired from nearby, and pit-sawn and handcrafted to make boards. Bricks for steps and a fireplace were hand-made, probably from local clay. The core initially comprised a central hallway and 4 rooms - front parlour, front bedroom, rear dining room and rear bedroom. The latter was partitioned into two bedrooms at a some stage - some Burnett descendants believe it was always partitioned. A short time later two attic bedrooms were added. Early photographs of the house show external walls of deep boards and exposed timber stud framing, encircled by verandahs and resting on low stumps. The high-pitched shingled roof had a short ridge, and the verandah roofs, also shingled, were supported on plain chamfered timber posts. Glass and timber-panelled French doors opened onto the verandahs from all rooms. The first front steps were of timber, but had been replaced by 1907 with masonry steps. Between early 1907 and mid-1909, the verandah roofs were replaced with corrugated galvanised iron; later the whole roof was clad with iron. An external oven and chimney is shown in the earliest photograph, dated , but later a detached kitchen wing was built.