The complex is based around Heide, the home of John & Sunday Reed.

Heide II - the new house

Heide II from the kitchen garden

Heide is a property on the banks of the Yarra (7 Templestowe Road Bulleen next to Banksia Park to be exact) in the area where the Australian Impressionists (later known as the Heidelberg School) were in the late nineteenth century developing their new style of outdoor painting. By the mid twentieth century, John and Sunday Reed  had purchased the property with its small farmhouse and it was here that artists such as Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Arthur Boyd, Joy Hester, John Perceval and Danila Vassillieff worked and often lived. It was also regarded as the headquarters of the Angry Penguins - a group of artists, writers and philosophers centred around Max Harris and intent on promoting modernist art and writing. Later John and Sunday Reed commissioned a new house (Heide II) in a modernist style and the architecture has stood the test of time extremely well. Sunday also created a large kitchen garden with vegetables and herbs (see above) which is still maintained today.

The property is now home to the Heide Museum of Modern Art.