Mike and Shauna Buscombe were both born in Melbourne and apart from 3 years spent in Singapore in the early 1980's, they lived most of their lives there.

It was in 1974, when Mike was working as a junior clerk for Hardie Trading Limited in Melbourne, that his Marketing Director, Jim McCutcheon visited Prospect House for lunch soon after the house had been restored and opened as a restaurant.

At the time there was a card on the table outlining a breif history of the property. The thing that caught Jim's eye was the fact that Prospect House was owned in 1864 by an ex-British Indian Army Colonel, after the original Buscombes' estate was sold.

Jim had himself been in the Indian Army.

Reading on, he recognised the name of James Kestell Buscombe, the original owner, as the name of one of his junior staff. On his return to Melbourne he approached Mike's desk in his foreboding manner and threw something at him. After recovering from this unexpected visit, Mike realised it was not his marching orders but in fact a piece of card from Tasmania. On reading through the card, Mike recognised not only the name Buscombe but also the name Kestell which he knew his father had in his name, Sydney Joseph Kestell Buscombe. Syd was certain his ancestors had come directly from Cornwall in England to Victoria, not from Tasmania.

Over the next few years, a few of the Buscombes visited Prospect House and a few half hearted efforts were made to trace the family tree. I say half hearted as there is only one Buscombe family in Australia and it should have been easy. When Mike and Shauna married in 1979, Mike had to obtain his Birth Certificate for a passport to visit Singapore on their honeymoon. They discovered at this point that Mike's name was in fact Michael Geoffrey Kestell Buscombe. Syd had not remembered continuing with the old family name and had not included it in any of the other three children's names. This discovery was too much for Mike and in particular Shauna, who took over the family tree tracing.

Before too long, with the help of the then owners of Prospect House, they established that a son born at Prospect House had left Tasmania and settled in country Victoria. Mike's father revealed that his father had been born in Kyneton in Victoria and so off they trouped to Kyneton for a weekend. After much searching the graveyards and church records, Mike and Shauna found that Mike's grandfather had been born in Kyneton in 1878 and his father was stated on the birth certificate as being James Henry Kestell Buscombe who was born in Richmond in 1828 to James Kestell Buscombe, the original owner of Prospect House.

Mike and Shauna had confirmed that their heritage did in fact lie for a short time in Tasmania. The owners of Prospect House were as excited about it, as the Buscombes themselves. In 1981 they were all invited to Prospect House for a family reunion upon the opening of the accommodation units. Mike and Shauna were living in Singapore at the time and had planned to visit Europe for Christmas, however as Christmas drew closer, they decided to join the rest of the family in Tasmania.

They all had a wonderful time visiting the old family home and actually joked about buying it back into the family should the opportunity arise.

In 1986, Mike Shauna and their two sons Kristofer and Ashley, visited Tasmania and drove around the State, stopping off in Richmond for two nights. Kristofer, then 5 years old, fell in love with Prospect House and was heard to state that "It was not fair, Prospect House should belong to him!" He even wanted to open a bank account to save up and buy it.

The then owner, Graeme Phillips had told Kristofer the story about the family jewels supposedly being buried somewhere on the property and that if he found them he would send them to Kristofer. For months after the holiday, Kristofer checked the letter box daily for the jewels.

When Prospect House came onto the market in early 1990, at a time when both Mike and Shauna were ready for a change, it seemed one more touch of fate, too much to pass up. So once again the property was back in the hands of the Buscombe family, 126 years after it had left the original Australian Buscombe family.