St Bathans shift may be on the cards
ONE of Queenstown’s oldest cottages may be moving to St Bathans.
In February, the Queenstown Lakes District Council asked for expressions of interest to relocate ‘‘Gratuity Cottage’’ from its home on Gorge Rd to a new site, with the hope it would be restored and given a new lease of life.
The cottage was believed to have been built in the early 1870s by Queenstown builder John Frederic, most likely using southern beech milled from Robertson and Co’s sawmills at Kinloch.
The 443sq m property has been owned by the Kim family since 2013. However, they wanted to redevelop the land it sits on and hoped to relocate the cottage to ensure its historic, social and archaeological significance was protected.
One expression of interest was received by the council — that was a proposal to relocate it to St Bathans.
Joseph Kim told the Otago Daily Times yesterday the family was working through the process with the applicant at present and did not have a time frame for how long that might take.
Heritage New Zealand lists the cottage as a category 2 historic place and its overall heritage assessment listing is moderate to high.
A report on the cottage said, overall, the layout of the cottage was ‘‘remarkably original’’ and, in general, it was of high historical significance and ‘‘one of the most original and unmodified early buildings to survive in Queenstown’’.