In raptures
A converted church layered with unusual treasures is heaven for these Auckland escapees
On a guided walking tour while holidaying in Rome, Steve Galpin and his partner Tor Muriwai managed to divert the entire group of tourists several blocks off course. “The guide was taking us to the usual tourist spots – the Trevi Fountain and Piazza Navona – but we wanted to know where we could find all the antiques shops,” remembers Steve. “She happily made everyone detour down a few streets, and once we’d had a good look at the antiques shops, she took us back on the usual path.”
Whether they’re travelling around New Zealand or overseas, the finding, fancying and gathering of antiques, vintage items and quirky curiosities is always on Steve and Tor’s itinerary.
“We tend to buy things that are unfashionable; the items no one really likes any more, and things some people find a bit strange to collect – like vintage taxidermy,” says Steve, pointing out the stuffed white swan that appears to be gliding across water inside an enormous glass display case. A badger, also in a vintage glass case, is conspicuous for not being one of New Zealand’s resident fauna.
Steve and Tor had lived in Auckland for almost 30 years when they became increasingly frustrated with the daily commute through traffic-jammed streets.
They went into house-hunting mode, travelling to Christchurch, to Melbourne and twice visiting Napier before eventually deciding it was too small. >
Then, unexpectedly, a little weatherboard church built in 1904 in the prettily named settlement of Brightwater captured their imaginations and stole their hearts – and suddenly, size didn’t matter after all.
They might never have discovered it but for encouragement from Steve’s sister Maree who lives in Brightwater, a 20-minute drive south of Nelson. The former Methodist church had long been converted into a cafe aptly named Vespers. When the cafe’s owners bought the church in the early 2000s, it was a cavernous empty space that had been leased for many years to an artist.
Not a stick of furniture remained to show it had once been a place of worship – no pews, no pulpit, not even a prayer book or Bible. These days it houses many religious artworks, hanging shoulder to shoulder and even down the back of the hallway door. Steve and Tor share a passion for collecting religious items, from vintage artworks to statues, and they’re particularly drawn to Gothic-style church furniture.
The mission of packing their considerable collections in Auckland for the move to the South Island required a 50 cubic metre truck – or so they thought.
“We had so much jammed into our small villa in Kingsland, a lot had to go into storage while the house was on the market, so it looked less like an antiques shop,” says Steve. “Then, to move here, we couldn’t get everything into that huge truck, so the rest of it arrived six weeks later. We just couldn’t fit it in here, so we sent two vanloads to a local antiques dealer.”
Meeting that dealer turned out to be fortuitous. “Only a week or two after we’d met the antiques dealer, she phoned us and said, ‘You’ll never guess what I have in the back of my van.’”
Their church’s original pulpit had been miraculously discovered in a garage sale some 20-plus years after it was removed, so Tor and Steve excitedly cleared the space where it once stood. “When we got it home, it fitted perfectly in its original spot. All the screw holes and some dowelling holes lined up. There wasn’t anything else to show it was from this church, but a local resident remembered it.”
Over a decade, the former owners had transformed the back hall area of the church into a two-storey, three-bedroom home. Out front was Vespers cafe: where the church congregation once gathered, with a counter, coffee machine, tables and chairs. >
Although the cafe quickly became Tor and Steve’s living room, it wasn’t unusual for people to wander through the open doors hoping for a flat white in the landscaped gardens.
“It happened a lot, even though the cafe signs were gone,” says Tor. “I’d just say, ‘Well – I can make you a coffee, but it’ll be $8 and I’ve only got instant.’”
Steve and Tor say they’re “pretty-much retired”, though Steve is sometimes asked to appraise deceased estates, which was part of his work in Auckland. Tor also has a background in appraising antiques, and finance too, but he’s also a singer and actor and Nelson’s local theatre recently coaxed him back to the stage.
“Friends often come to stay,” says Steve. “We’ve made a few trips to Wellington and Christchurch and went on a road trip to Dunedin. I’ve taken up yoga and I’ve been upcycling furniture and selling it at a local shabby-chic market. This semi-retirement is quite nice after working six days a week, where so much time was about sitting in traffic.”