ALL THINGS NICE
Terry generally puts in an extremely long day, popping down early to cook breakfast or chat to hotel guests, working hard throughout the day, then mixing martinis for guests at cocktail hour. “It is getting harder as I get older, and I do have to pace myself these days,” he says.
“I have learned after all these years to sneak away in the middle of a cocktail party and retire. Otherwise, there’s nothing left for me. Luckily I only have to go upstairs.”
The décor of Terry’s roof-top apartment is fresh and contemporary, while the hotel below is decorated in early 20th- century splendour. “I’m a bit fanatical; very fussy. I’m always picking up things from my travels and changing things around here. Everything has to be just right.” As for the future, Terry has no plans to move out when the hotel out-paces him. “In 10 years, I wouldn’t mind getting a few mates in and turning the hotel into apartments. Ideally, I’d keep on a chef and a housekeeper — certainly a bar — and reinstall the grand piano. That’s how I see the future here.” nicehotel.co.nz
Terry then opened the first café at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in 1996, ESPresso, followed by a juice bar in 1998. “I picked up a lot of things before they were being done in New Zealand. I traveled a lot and saw things in bigger cities I thought would work here.” He’s also written cookbooks and held cooking classes.
Twenty years ago, he opened Nice Hotel with his then-partner, Chris Herlihy, a few sloping city blocks up from New Plymouth’s famous Wind Wand. Terry didn’t need to move far to do it — he was already living in the house, having bought it five years earlier. The twostoreyed wooden home — the city’s largest wooden building — was built in about 1880 as the settlement’s first free-house. Five years later, it was transformed into a hospital for the Red Coats during the New Zealand land wars. Then, at the turn of the 20th century, it became the surgery and residence for Dr George Walker, followed by his son, also Dr George Walker.
Terry had long admired it. “I remember being 15 and walking past this place, looking across the street at its two turrets, and thinking, ‘I’ll never afford something like that.’ So being here is a daily ‘pinch yourself ’ thing.”
After Terry fulfilled that youthful dream in 1992, a doctor continued to rent the rooms that are now the hotel’s dining room and a “New York-style” house bar (many guests share their memories of visiting as patients). The back rooms — now the hotel kitchen and a suite — and upstairs rooms he shared with flatmates and his two sons. Yes, Terry has been married — something he says comes as a surprise to many who don’t know him well. “They see all this flamboyance, red jackets
Terry’s apartment, built above the restaurant, is a modern and relatively minimalist counterpoint to his hotel. “My personal style is contemporary, slick and clean. Maybe it’s from years of being around the hotel. The fringed brocade curtains and chandeliers work well in the hotel, but not up here.” His closet is full of colour, however, with a jacket or hat close at hand for any occasion. “I wear tails a lot, or my airforce dinner jacket, or pipe-band jacket — ringmaster stuff. I often wear a kilt. It’s all part of the package.”