Take a peek inside St Gerard’s
The leader of the community that lives at St Gerard’s, Ignatius Susilo, takes me straight to the library when I arrive. ‘‘It’s the best place in the monastery,’’ he tells me, opening a heavy wooden door on to the most unexpected sight.
It’s a comfortably shabby room, with mismatched furniture, potted plants dotting the windowsills, and a random selection of books, both religious and secular, lining the walls. It has a welcoming, lived-in feel that’s quite charming. But those are all things you notice later, right after you’ve stopped gaping at the floor-to-ceiling Gothic tracery and leaded windows overlooking Wellington Harbour.
Forget best place in the monastery, this might just be the best place in the whole city.
‘‘You can see all of Wellington,’’ Susilo says. ‘‘You can just see what’s happening out there, when there’s a party in Waitangi Park or at the beach.’’
Susilo, a spokesman for the International Catholic Programme of Evangelisation (ICPE), is one of more than 120 people who live in the Category 1 historic place.
‘‘We’ve been doing a big cleanup,’’ he says as he leads me from the library to a similarly beautiful chapel, where the community has morning prayer, and from there to the lawn, where you can indeed see right across the capital.
The cleanup is in aid of tomorrow, when the community will open its curious home to the curious public for Wellington Heritage Week. It’s the second year that St Gerard’s has taken part.
Heritage Week director David Bachelor, an urban planner whose ‘‘love of heritage’’ convinced him to organise the annual event in his spare time, says while the week is an opportunity to have a nosey inside some of the region’s iconic buildings, it’s also about connecting with the people who use them.
‘‘All the people involved want to tell a story about the identity of the places where they live and work.
‘‘That’s how people get interested and realise that heritage is worth it.’’
And worth saving. The brick building, perched on the edge of Mt Victoria above Oriental Bay, was yellow-stickered after the 2016 earthquakes. More than $20 million could be needed to complete the strengthening works required by the 2027 deadline.
Taking part in Heritage Week, which is free to the public, and fostering goodwill towards the monastery might be crucial to saving the building.
‘‘It’s not just about an old building. It’s about the people, places and stories that makes up the heritage,’’ Bachelor says.
Wellingtonians seem to love the opportunity, too. More than 1600 Wellingtonians visited during the first Heritage Week, according to Susilo.
The monastery was built in 1908 and the chapel in 1905. They have been in the ICPE community’s care since it was sold by the Catholic Redemptorist fathers in 1995.
When Susilo told a friend he lived at St Gerard’s, she said she thought the big orange building on the hill was a ‘‘haunted place’’. But there’s nothing creepy about it.
‘‘Most people who come here on the tours are not Christian,’’ Susilo says. ‘‘We had a couple who came here and the woman said, ‘I’m not religious at all, but the first time I stepped in here, I felt peace’. She said, ‘I don’t want to leave this place’.’’
You can experience some of that peace, and those spectacular views, from tomorrow until Friday, October 27 at 2pm, and on Saturday, October 28 on the hour from 10am till 4pm.
See wellingtonheritageweek.co.nz for more information.