Ed’s letter: Why Dot’s castle is more love story than fairy tale.
This issue brings you the most audacious home project ever seen in NZ House & Garden: a castle with turrets, gargoyles and a dungeon.
It’s quite something, this castle; floating improbably white and wonderful across a lake from the
Riverstone Cafe on State Highway
1 near Oamaru. There’s been a TV doco made on the castle, and some speculative newspaper stories. But today, for the first time – in what, if this were Woman’s Day, we might call a
“world exclusive” – we take you inside to admire the suits of armour, star-studded ceiling and other finery, shipped to Oamaru from around the world.
The most impressive thing about this castle though – as the media stories point out – is that it is the vision of one 70-year-old woman: the renowned Dot Smith, an entrepreneur/gardener with pink hair and a princess fixation.
I met Dot a few weeks back, when associate editor Rosemary and I were in Oamaru organising our house tour (the castle is on our 15 February tour). We had lunch and talked about her 10 years of castle-building dramas: council delays, design compromises, massive cost overruns. And as I ate my cheese soufflé, I kept thinking, “How? How did she do it?”
The way the story is usually told is as a Dot-centred pauper-to-princess fairy tale: a young woman grows up with big dreams, works hard on the land and creates her own Cinderella-like happy ending. That is a fine, romantic yarn – but it is only two-thirds of the story. If you believe the old adage that human beings need three things to thrive – something to do, something to aim for, and someone to love them – it seems to me that it’s the third count that really explains the miracle of Dot’s castle.
In most stories about Dot you don’t hear much about her dairy farmer husband, Neil. “He’s the most unpretentious man you’ve ever met,” Dot says. “But he just believes in me.” Neil’s been there all along, supporting her, avoiding the limelight, helping pay the bills. The stained-glass family crest inside the castle has a dairy cow at its apex: homage to the source of the family’s wealth.
And while Neil is looking out for Dot, she looks out for Neil too. Her singleminded castle vision is legendary – but, for Neil, she compromised on the rustic stone and built him the white farmhouse kitchen he wanted.
A fairy tale? Nah. The story of Dot’s incredible castle is, I reckon, a real story about the power of a loving give-and-take relationship. And it’s all the better for it.