New life for old vicarage
When Michael Barker started refurbishing Geraldine’s 119-year-old vicarage, he sent word to Grand Designs NZ.
It seemed like the perfect fit for the show: a heritage building down on its luck, rescued from the scrapheap by the head of a family that has been a cornerstone of Geraldine society for generations.
Barker, of cordial and condiment maker Barker’s of Geraldine fame, planned to turn this piece of Canterbury history back into something, well, grand.
‘‘I never heard back from them!’’ he says. ‘‘But I thought it would have been beautiful for that show, because it was such a perfect story.’’
In the 1960s, Barker’s innovator and inventor father decided to try his hand at fruit wines, and that was the start of the Barker’s brand. Fast forward 50 years and, under Michael Barker’s watchful eye, the company decides to open a flash food store and eatery in the heart of Geraldine’s historic area, a lure for tourists and locals alike.
There’s just one problem: the eatery is next door to the once-lovely, now rather sad, run down-looking vicarage.
‘‘I thought, ‘I’d put Barker’s in this beautiful site, what am I going to do with this old dunger of a building?’,’’ Michael explains.
The answer: renovate and restore the pre-1900 vicarage to its former glory and turn it into luxury accommodation – after getting permission from the church, of course.
‘‘I had to do a presentation from the pulpit one Sunday at church, and then I had to go outside while the open parish meeting voted on whether I’d be allowed to proceed with my plans.’’
All the parishioners showed up for the vote – and the answer? A resounding yes.
‘‘The vicarage was very run down and badly in need of some expensive TLC. We replaced 25 per cent of the weatherboard on three sides, and we replaced the roof.
‘‘On the south side, the weatherboards had all rotted – and they were beautifully clad in 20-year-old asbestos.’’
He describes the work as major ‘‘open heart surgery’’, with everything from the walls to the stained glass windows being refurbished.
Barker’s team discovered that there had been some insulation in the attic, as much as stacks of 1900s newspapers with sawdust on top counts as insulation.
‘‘By the time we’d wheelbarrowed out tonnes and tonnes of lath and plaster, we were left with the bare bones, which were essentially good.’’
The result of all that hard work is a stunning blend of period grace and modern pizzazz, from the delicate leadlights and rimu-panelled entranceway to the lush bathrooms and ultra-modern monkey and fruit wallpaper.
‘‘The wallpaper is just mind-blowing,
isn’t it? People love the wallpaper – they love the fact it’s so out there. People used to use really loud wallpapers back [when the vicarage was built], too, so it works.’’
Because the home was built before 1900, Barker had to have an archeological survey of the land, and an archeologist had to be present during much of the work.
‘‘That added a little drama to the business. If we’d found something, it would have stopped everything and there would have been a whole lot of faffing around.’’
They didn’t find anything, but it gave him a deeper appreciation of the building’s history.
Once work was complete, deciding what to do with the building took a little while.
‘‘We thought, ‘Let’s take a long-term view’. Geraldine’s a beautiful town, it’s on the main tourist highway. There’s no demand for premium accommodation right now . . . so let’s create it. It appealed to my sense of challenge.’’
Turning the building into a B&B business was about Barker’s ‘‘love of Geraldine and giving back to the town’’.
‘‘I suppose if it doesn’t pan out, we could live in it, but that would be a waste. People do love staying in a bit of history like that, but it would be a shame to monopolise it.
‘‘We built it to share.’’