Wigs and all have been packed for the move from the firm’s iconic location for Koroit Street near Warrnambool’s legal precinct. 

Business development manager Maree Lane said the move had been five years in the planning. 

“We’ve been planning this for 12 weeks, we’ve moved the bulk of our materials — everything,” Ms Lane said. 

“We’ve been there for 45 years but the building is nearly 70 years old.” 

The historic brick building with a panoramic view of Lake Pertobe was originally built as a guest house in the 1930s. 

Despite a characteristic and antiquated interior, it’s been something of a rabbit warren for litigators with patchy heating and cooling. 

“I can’t imagine they’d be many other offices with a bathtub,” Ms Lane said but added many staff were in two minds about the move. 

“We’d be wrong if we said we weren’t sad to be leaving … it just came to the point where we needed something more functional,” she said. 

Ms Lane said the new office would offer open-space planning. 

“It’s a three-storey building and we’ve got underground car parks for 21 spaces,” she said. What the Sandilands building will be used for next is uncertain. 

In January, Warrnambool City Council received plans for a nine-storey apartment block to be built alongside the historic guest house. 

Under the proposal for the high rise, Sandilands would remain relatively untouched by the development. 

s.mccomish@fairfaxmedia.com.au