Skip to content
Selvedge Talk to us
Menu

We keep the house. You keep the weeks.

Selvedge looks after holiday houses from Goolwa to Victor Harbor for the people who own them. The listing and the nightly price, the guests' questions, the turnover and the house check between every stay, the gutters, the gas bottles and whatever breaks.

A weatherboard cottage near the sea with its front wall cut away: a hall, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom, the deck beside them, the drive, the gate and the gas bottles out the front. Selvedge Selvedge 45° Hot water Gas bottle Smoke alarms Torch Gate latch Keys Beds madeKitchenBathroomHallwayBarbecue

Your phone

14:30

No new messages

Selvedge

All well at the house this week. On Tuesday night the heater wouldn't light, and one of us sorted it then. Gutters cleared this morning after the blow. Changeover tomorrow at 10.

The keys back on their hook and the porch light on. The house is ready.

Drawn for this page: a week like most, at a house we look after.

The edge that doesn't fray

Selvedge is a small team in Port Elliot. Each house we look after has one of us who knows it: which window sticks, where the water shuts off, how the heater likes to be lit.

A selvedge is the edge a weaver finishes so the cloth won't fray. We look after the edges of your year.

Folded white sheets and towels on a cupboard shelf, a coral, undyed and grey striped throw folded on top with its finished edge showing
  • The listing, and the photographs of the house.
  • The nightly price, set week by week.
  • Every guest's question, before and during the stay.
  • The turnover and the house check between every stay.
  • The gutters, the gas bottles, the smoke alarms.
  • Whatever breaks, and the trade who fixes it.
  • The weeks you keep, and a house that's ready for them.

Between one guest and the next

Changeover day, a Saturday most weeks, runs the same way whatever the weather does.

Plain house keys on brass hooks beside an open cottage door

At 10:00 the last guests pull the door shut. By 10:30 we're in for the turnover: windows open, the sheets and towels bagged for the laundry in Victor, the fridge emptied and wiped, the barbecue plate scraped. Beds made, the floors, the shower, and the sand that always finds the hallway. Then the house check: we walk the house the way a guest will, trying the hot water, weighing the gas bottle, testing the smoke alarms, a torch in the drawer, the gate latch. Anything worn goes on your list. Anything broken, we sort, and you hear about it the same day where we can. By 14:00 the keys are back on their hook, and at 15:00 the next guests find the porch light on.

Every house has its own turnover list and its own house check, and we write them with you before the first guest arrives.

Your guests are ours to look after

We write the listing and photograph the house, set the nightly price week by week on the booking sites, and look after every guest from the first question to the last key. They message us, not you.

Breakfast for two on a weathered deck: bread, stone fruit, a teapot and juice, the sea beyond the rail

What guests ask us, and what we tell them

Can we bring the dog?
If your house takes pets, yes; we say so on the listing and leave an old towel by the back door.
The heater won't come on.
Message us. We'll talk you through it, or one of us comes round.
Can we leave late on Sunday?
Ask by Friday. If nobody's arriving that day, usually.
Where can we swim?
Horseshoe Bay when it's calm. The house book has the rest.
We broke a mug.
Leave it on the bench. It happens.

The late-night ones are answered in the morning, unless they can't wait.

When the hot water goes at eight on a Saturday, the guest calls us, and we call the plumber we'd call for our own place.

A ladder against a cottage gutter above a steel cage holding two unmarked gas bottles
  • Gutters cleared before winter, and looked at after the big blows.
  • Gas bottles weighed at the changeover and swapped when they run low.
  • The hot water and the heater tried, and the smoke alarms checked, at the changeover.
  • Salt washed off the windows and the outdoor shower.
  • Small things fixed while we're there; bigger things quoted to you first.
  • The trades we call are local, from Goolwa to Victor.

Your year

Click a week to keep it for yourself.Tap a week to keep it for yourself.

In a year like this, a -bedroom house near Port Elliot, pets , has guests most weeks over summer, the school holidays and the long weekends, the odd winter weekend, and some long quiet stretches in winter. The weeks you keep stay yours; the booking sites never see them.

The guide price moves with the season: about $250 a night in the quietest weeks, about $500 over New Year.

Illustrative, drawn for this page. Your house, your weeks and the season set the real figures.

We charge a share of each stay and nothing for the weeks you keep. We'll write it down for your house.

Arrive to a house that's ready

A made bed in a whitewashed cottage room, a coral, undyed and grey striped throw across its foot

The weeks you've kept: 2 to 15 January, 12 to 25 June.

Tell us the Wednesday and we make it ready: the beds made in your own sheets if you like, milk, bread and fruit in the fridge, the outdoor chairs out and the porch light on.

From Goolwa to Victor Harbor

  • GoolwaHindmarsh Island
  • Middleton
  • Port Elliot
  • Victor Harbor
  • Encounter Bay

We look after houses along this stretch of coast and nowhere else, so one of us is never far from yours.

A pale limestone house on a grassy rise above a cove of lichen-covered granite boulders

Tell us about the house

Where it is, how many bedrooms, and the weeks you'd like to keep. We'll come and walk through it with you.

A phone number or an email, whichever suits.

Pets
The weeks you'd like to keep
A box a week, by the Saturday it starts. Ticked now: 2 to 15 January; 12 to 25 June.
What would you like us to take on?

What happens next

  1. We call you back.
  2. We walk through the house with you.
  3. We write its turnover list and house check together.
  4. The first guests arrive.