Pioneer Cottage Buderim

A modest house with a distinctive steep pitched roof in Ballinger Crescent is home to the Buderim Historical Society. The house was built from a variety of local pit-sawn timber, for John and Ann Burnett. Burnett had come to Queensland with his parents in 1866. Ann was the governess for his younger siblings. They married in 1867. The Burnett family were pioneers of Queensland’s sugar industry. John’s brother Gilbert worked at Louis Hope’s Ormiston plantation and established his own sugar mill at Wellington Point by 1875. John and his brother Harry moved to Buderim in 1876 to work at Fielding and Dixon’s sugar mill. By 1884, John was managing the second mill on the mountain: the Buderim Mountain Sugar Company Mill. A decline in the sugar industry by the late 1880s led John to establish the first Buderim General Store. John and Ann were loved and respected community members. After their deaths the property remained in the family until the early 1950s. Following further subdivision of the land, the house was donated to the Buderim War Memorial Centre. In 1966, the Buderim Historical Society was formed, and through community support, the society transformed the property into a house museum.