These ceramicists went potty for each other, then fell in love with a landmark villa in Upper Moutere.
Fortuitous timing brought these two ceramicists together
The first time Katie Gold met fellow ceramicist Owen Bartlett, he took a photograph of her looking skyward as a crane hoisted her new potter’s kiln onto a truck, right next to his. When Owen bought his new kiln and heard through the Nelson potters’ grapevine that Katie was buying one too, he decided sharing the cost of the Lift N Shift crane truck would be sensible and gave her a call. Almost three years later Owen and Katie hired a truck once again – this time to relocate their kilns to a house they’d bought together in Upper Moutere.
“We got to know one another better through our work with the community potters club and the Nelson Potters Association,” Katie says. “And then, one day, I was Skyping with my sister and told her, ‘I have to go now, Owen’s coming up my driveway and he’s holding a bunch of carnations.’
“I was living and working in Nelson in those days and Owen had his studio out here in the country, in an old apple shed down by the estuary.” >
The creative couple told a real estate agent to find them character in the country. It had to be big enough to be a family home for the couple and Katie’s young daughter Alysha (then aged 12), as well as a gallery for their ceramic artworks and enough space to house a pottery studio for two. And Katie really wanted to live a short stroll from a general store or dairy, because that’s what she was used to in the city.
The agent had just arrived here from Ireland and thought he’d go into the real estate business, says Owen. “He found us this house and then went into car sales. Ours is the only house he ever sold,” he says with a laugh.
“He initially told us there was a little cottage about to come up for sale in Upper Moutere village, so we drove up and down this road, trying to find it.”
The house is no cottage. It’s a well-known landmark in Upper Moutere: an elegant, two-storey villa, built on 5600sqm of rambling gardens 125 years ago by the Bensemanns, one of the German families who established the village. Upper Moutere, originally known as Sarau, recently celebrated its 175th anniversary.
Katie and Owen have an old photograph of the Bensemann family gathered on the verandah to mark the completion of this house in 1893. Right beside it is the original Bensemann home that was built many years earlier. Nowadays it is heavily draped in wisteria and is the quintessential derelict cottage, complete with dormer windows. It’s often snapped by passing tourists and keen photographers.
“I found an old German newspaper, dated 1879, they’d used for lining in the walls,” says Owen. “We’ve had a builder reframe the interior because we didn’t want the whole place to fall down.”
Shortly after moving in, the busy potters had an enormous corrugated iron studio built in the back garden and fitted it with an old wooden door and sash windows they’d collected from demolition yards, to ensure it looked suitably historic. >
‘Apparently it didn’t have an indoor bathroom until 1986’
The house has been a never-ending renovation project, ever since they bought it in 2000, says Owen. “Apparently, it didn’t have an indoor bathroom until 1986, and when we bought it, the hot water supply to the kitchen was installed just in time for our possession day. We have a great builder, Holger Meiborg, who knows this house inside and out. He’s worked on most of it, and nothing seems to faze him.”
The enormous garden is somewhat less tamed, however, says Katie. “When we came here, the garden sloped away in a series of hedgerows that formed garden rooms, but it was completely overgrown. It was so confusing, at times Owen’s mum couldn’t find her way back to the house when she visited us. We go through phases of having it all under control or not.”
The gardens are opened to the public during the annual Moutere Artisans open day, when local artists and food producers open their properties to visitors. Even so, it’s not unusual for visitors to the gallery to take themselves off for a stroll around the garden at any time of the year. Some even wander through the open French doors into the kitchen, which was completely renovated three years ago. Filled with vibrantly glazed ceramics, it seems like part of the gallery.
Katie and Owen’s mutual passion for colour is evident in their furnishings, the paintwork inside and out, and even in their clothing. Says Owen: “We love colour so much that, when we go out together, we seem to always be the ones who are easy to spot at a social gathering.”
Q&A
Favourite household chore: Collecting the eggs from the chickens and picking the fruit and vegetables. The orchard has apples, plums, nashi, quince and feijoa. (Katie)
We love this part of New Zealand: Upper Moutere reminds us of Tuscany. Actually, no – Tuscany reminds us of Upper Moutere. (Owen)
Best attraction in the neighbourhood: Neudorf Vineyards. The best wine in a setting that is straight from a Toss Woollaston painting. (Owen)
Best place for coffee: The Old Post Office in Upper Moutere village, which happens to be right across the street, just as I’d wanted when we were house-hunting. (Katie)
Katie Gold and Owen Bartlett