Unfortunately, the council demolished the house in 2016 to make way for the Kalkee Road Children’s and Community Hub.

There had been various owners and residents of this house, including Janet Allan who lived there in the 1970s. She was taken by its unique style, the lovely windows that opened out and decorative plaster ceilings. It was a very comfortable house to live in.

The house was built by Otto Rentsch. He migrated from Germany to Fremantle in 1914. He swagged his way across the Nullarbor to Victoria, where he worked on farms. He returned to his home country in 1920 to visit family and convince them to also migrate to Australia. He arrived back in Australia in 1921 and worked on farms in the Horsham area. Eventually, a number of his family members migrated and joined him in Horsham.

In 1927, he purchased land in Kalkee Road (then known as Government Road) from E. H. Uebergang. He designed and constructed the unique home in 1929. The building was of expanded metal mesh rendered with 75mm of cement. Otto claimed to be the first in Australia with a building of this new form of cement work (which he declared was fireproof and would not crack).

There were three downstairs and two upstairs rooms and the design allowed for air circulation under the bell shaped roof. The Horsham Times stated: “Economy is at least its virtue.”

Otto later opened a cement works with E. H. Uebergang in Lynott Street, where he was a pioneer in the manufacture of concrete pipes and bricks. In 1941, Ernest Grossmann and his wife Wanda became the owners of this unique house. Ernest did some preserving for his wife as a hobby until Mr Alan Cook suggested that he should take it up commercially, starting off in the kitchen before moving to a purpose-built establishment nearby trading under the name Wimmera Pickle and Preserving Company.

Ernest supplied an area from Geelong to Mildura, all the Wimmera and Mallee and down as far as Warrnambool. Ernest employed up to six people during the pickling season. He pickled the first batch of olives from the Grampians Olive Plantation at Laharum.