THE WAY WE WERE
A tiny cottage from the Otago gold rush has been carefully restored as a much loved holiday home
A gold rush-era cottage as a simple South Island getaway
From the front doormat, Baz and Kate Hastings’ visitors can comfortably absorb a full house tour without craning their necks. Baz delights in offering first-time guests a guided commentary as they enter the couple’s historic, one-room Otago holiday house.
“This is the grand entranceway,” he says, with a sweeping gesture towards the floorboards. “On your right, the master bedroom. To your left, the front parlour.”
The so-called dining room is actually a built-in, two-person wooden table that separates the tiny living area from the diminutive lean-to kitchen.
The Hastings have added one and a bit extra rooms: a small coat and boot bay and a bathroom that ended their wintry night-time dashes to the outhouse. Otherwise, the original 26sqm domain has stood as-is for almost 160 years. In fact, an archeologist was required on-site during excavation for the bathroom in case any historically significant items were unearthed.
The rammed earth cottage sits in nearly a hectare of paddock a few minutes’ walk uphill from Cardrona Hotel, beneath an old tree that yields unimpressive plums but a glorious show of white blossom each spring. Cardrona ski field’s lower carpark is a 15-minute drive away. >
This abode is a far cry from the couple’s seaside house on Waiheke Island ( NZ House & Garden, January 2014). In the north, their ocean outlook stretches away to the horizon; their sub-alpine home is hemmed in by mountains. Baz has joined the local curling club as well as the ratepayers’ association that meets in either the church or the pub. He’s also bought his first set of new skis in 30 years and joined with friends to invest in a barrel of locally made whisky. He delights in the differences between their chosen homes. In the south, he relishes the pure drinking water, stable weather and dramatic outlook. Kate, meanwhile, is smitten with the seasonal contrasts. “Autumn because of the colours,” she says. “Winters because of cosying up, summers that are hot and dry without the humidity we get on Waiheke. Winter is lovely when the trees are bare instead of all that green, green, green. And I love the downto-earth characters that we have met here.”
It was Kaikoura-raised Kate who longed for a southern bolthole – and Baz who found this particular one after a few false starts. Three years ago, while pedalling the Otago Rail Trail, he rolled his eyes as she dreamed aloud of acquiring a succession of crumbling stone houses they encountered. Back on Waiheke Island, a few months later, a former workmate of Baz’s mentioned a property he’d previously owned was on the market again.
Known as Galvin’s Cottage, it was built around 1862 and originally inhabited by an Irish immigrant and his family. Patrick (Paddy) Galvin was a rabbiter and goldminer who made a name for himself playing the Irish pipes and more often his fiddle in Cardrona Hotel. Legend has it that Paddy could fall down drunk but never miss a note. Today, a grim southerly wind is still known locally as “Ma Galvin’s breath”.
When the Hastings initially visited the property, the day was miserable and foggy and the house was bitterly cold and reeked of mouse droppings. “How we had the courage to buy it I’ll never know, because you’d have to be mad,” Kate says. >
Out-of-kilter exterior walls had cracked and plaster was crumbling in places. The mouse-soiled bedding and sofa had to go, as did the single-glazed windows. Waiheke architect friend Paul McIntosh drew up plans to bring the bathroom indoors by adding an extra room and extending the roof in line with the kitchen. Heritage New Zealand saluted the Hastings’ desire to restore and sensitively renovate the building, providing sound advice on building materials and helping to enlist skilled craftsmen.
Baz set to work tracking down items such as lead-head nails, galvanised corrugated iron and a particular type of English lime wash mix to coat the replastered walls. Luckily the house is so small, these materials didn’t add up to huge dollars. Baz, a semiretired businessman, also worked as a labourer alongside Wanaka builder Dan Fountain, who tackled the additions – and provided additional tales from the time his family owned the cottage.
“It was a really cool project,” Baz says. “They started building in August and we had absolutely beautiful weather, 33 straight days of cloudless blue skies. Perfect for skiing and building.”