Doctor’s orders

An Auckland couple shifted south and bought The Doctor’s House, a grand two-storey villa in need of a reviving tonic

Visitors to Kathryn Seagrave and Jeremy Thompson’s Featherston home often remember being examined by the doctor in his surgery – the room where the couple now eat their dinner. Jeremy takes a quiet evening nip of single malt in the snug where the doctor wrote up his day’s notes. Their pool was used for swimming lessons for schoolgirls evacuated from Wellington during the Second World War. It’s all part of the package when you buy a 142-year-old home – the history, the memories.

“At least three doctors owned this house; Dr Doctor (yes, really) who started the practice in 1890, then Dr Sharp followed by Dr Roberts until the early 1980s,” says Kathryn. “It was attached to the building next door, which is a private home now but Dr Doctor built it in 1920 as a general hospital. Dr Roberts must have been a lovely man. Everyone has really nice things to say about him.”

The final doctor left in the 1980s but the name The Doctor’s House remains. And now the house and its sprawling grounds

with 100-year-old oaks, redwoods and Lawson cypress trees belongs to Kathryn and Jeremy, who have spent the past two years giving the now four-bedroom villa (six when it was built, but no bathrooms) a life-saving infusion.

After 40 years together in Auckland, the couple, who met as students at a music camp, decide to retire to a country town not too far from concerts and the theatre. Somewhere one hour from Auckland or Wellington seemed ideal. “And one hour out of Wellington was South Wairarapa,” says Kathryn.

On a Wednesday night, Jeremy found the house online. Kathryn recalls: “He rang the agent on the Thursday morning, and said, ‘If I came down tomorrow, could you show me around?’ So on Friday he looked at the place, flew back, and on Saturday we bought it.”

At that point the couple’s sum knowledge of South Wairarapa was a single day visiting 15 years ago. They knew “not a soul” in the area and none of their friends had ever visited the small (but growing) town. However, they loved the house and were keen for a new adventure. >

“It’s a very attractive home and has a lovely feel,” says Jeremy. “I grew up in a similar house in the Port Hills that was larger and older than this so, for me, it was like a little bit of Christchurch. All the previous families had done something to make the property better but it was seriously tired and needed a total renovation. We were looking for a project so we were quite happy to give it that.”

And, as this was their 20th renovation, they knew what they were letting themselves in for – they started work the day after they moved in.

“We wanted to create a family home that was suitable for living now. We added to the kitchen, put in more cabinetry, turned the laundry into a scullery and wine cellar. And we put in an island so visiting friends have somewhere to sit and drink wine,” says Kathryn. They pulled off the scrim, removed decades of birds and wasp nests, reviving every single part of the Grade 2 listed house. >

PHOTOGRAPHS PAUL MCCREDIE

THESE PAGES (from left) The moulded ceiling in the formal dining room was added in the 1960s using moulds from the 1930s: “Jeremy spent ages making the ceiling perfect. Then the Kaikoura earthquake happened a few weeks later and all those cracks Jeremy filled came back. This time we’re leaving them,” says Kathryn; the still life above the fireplace at right is a photograph by Vicky Fulton and the solitary figure in Victorian dress is a self-portrait by Yuki Kihara, After the Tsunami; the walls are painted Resene ‘Stack’ in double, half and quarter strengths. A Gordon Walters screenprint hangs above a silverware canteen that belonged to Kathryn’s grandmother, with English porcelain vases and homegrown roses.

THIS PAGE (clockwise from top left) Jeremy loves to sip a whisky in front of the fire in the snug which is where the doctors sat to write up their medical notes; the artwork above the fire is by Judy Millar. The entranceway features perspex blooms by Auckland artist Judy Darragh, with oils by Jake Walker and Ray Crooke lining the stairs. Looking from the top of the stairs into the landing, a Philippe Starck Ghost chair sits below an artwork from Ferner Gallery. OPPOSITE The Whisper by Emma Johnson is at the top of the stairs; the staircase is painted in Resene ‘Black White’ with the treads in Resene ‘Chicago’.