A Moveable Feat |
|
It’s the summer of 2008 and Marcus Darley and Grant Alecock are snatching their chance to peer through the windows of a derelict old house in Lower Hutt. It’s about to be purchased by a developer and the overgrown canopy of trees and old blankets hung at its windows are doing a good job of hiding any charms it might once have had. “We couldn’t see much,” recalls Marcus. “Only shapes.”
There is a staircase leading to nowhere. The last owner had used only two rooms, stacking the rest with boxes of old magazines, dimly visible through the filthy glass. But the ceilings are high and there’s a glimpse of part of a huge entrance hall.
“I could tell the house was a goodie,” says Grant, “so I harassed the hell out of the real estate agent. He finally gave me some very stringent deadlines to get the house removed – by the week before Christmas.” Undaunted, Marcus and Grant called in the movers and, right on deadline, their new purchase was sawn in two and driven over the Rimutaka Hills to its new site in Tauherenikau, right behind Marcus’ pub, The Tin Hut.
Step two was an entire gutting of the interior and an oversized bonfire. “My dad walked into the house,” says Grant, “and just shook his head. And I said, ‘Trust me.’”
Most of the ceilings had been lowered, the old tongue-and-groove was covered up by Pinex and the bathroom was pink and blue formica. Original features, such as the fire surrounds and mantelpieces, had vanished. “There were holes in the floor,” adds Marcus, “and the fireplace was boarded up. The kitchen was all rotten.”
So, sadly, were the original pull-out flour bins in the butler’s pantry, which were full of “walnuts and dead rats”. The original gas stove – one of the first gas stoves in the Wellington area – was still stashed in the attic (and eventually went to a collector). >
But Grant had been right. The house was a goodie. Called Stillingfleet, it had been designed in 1903 by noted architect Charles Natusch as a grand two-storey mansion for a prominent local family. In the early 1930s, the then owners decided to split the house in two, moving the top storey to an adjacent section. Grant and Marcus have the bottom half – hence the staircase leading to nowhere, though nowadays it takes you to an attic study and sleeping alcove.
Flimsy, it was not. “Brittons, the house movers, went to lift the house off the original piles and couldn’t get it up. They couldn’t understand why.” It turned out every internal wall was bolted through to its own set of brick foundations. Grant even found pieces of the original moulding, signed, dated and approved for use by Natusch. Plainly, affluence was built into the very fabric of this house and money trowelled in with the mortar.
Alas, Grant and Marcus didn’t have the same munificent budget. But they’re both willing to wait for the right piece. “If I don’t have enough money,” says Grant, “I will go without, and save.”
He took five weeks off work to get stuck into the restoration. “On my first day I fell off the ladder and broke my arm. So I sat at the computer and hunted through online demolition yards, TradeMe and auction houses.” Among his finds: antique cast-iron pillars for the hall from a shop front in Petone (they take four people to lift and had to have their own separate piles); 1883 panelling from the now-demolished Ballantyne’s store in Timaru and an entire rimu kitchen through TradeMe.
As for Marcus, he always wanted a garden to plant and now he has an acre (0.4ha) to play with. And both Grant and Marcus have brought art to the house, in differing styles. >
Marcus designed the sitting room panelling and chose the colours for various rooms but it was Grant who was “adamant” that the dining room be painted black. “Everyone said, no, you can’t, including Marcus. I said, ‘Watch.’ And it looks amazing.”
A brave choice – as is the “rustic” finish left on much of the wood and on the staircase. Grant doesn’t like things too pristine. “Because it’s a rambly old country house, he thought it looked better like this,” says Marcus. He adds dryly that the discussion “is an ongoing process”.
Grant’s approach probably has something to do with his years in the UK. “People there have a passion for original features in homes, like borer holes in the floorboards and pieces that aren’t matched, because they’re original to the property. In New Zealand, people tend to go a bit overboard in making things too perfect in period houses and they take all the character out of them. There’s a fine balance.”
Brave decisions all round really. Says Grant: “I solicit lots of opinions and thoughts and always do my own thing.” Seems to be working so far.
This weekend we will be: Drinking fine wine in front of a roaring open fire and having a few laughs with friends (usually at our expense!).
The bravest thing we did around the house was: Buy an overhead-mirrored four-poster bed, sourced via Neale Auld at Revans and Waite; it originally came from a high-class brothel in Auckland.
Favourite part of the house: The grand formal dining room, which is fantastic for entertaining close friends and family, and the entrance hall.
Favourite local shop: Country Trader in Greytown – a wonderful collection of design pieces and the best service around – and Revans and Waite Antiques, also in Greytown; the owner Neale Auld is an accomplished interior design expert and an authority on fine antiques.
The most debated design detail: Leaving certain rooms with rusticated skirting boards and architraves.
A well-kept secret about this area: The gardens and garden bar at The Tin Hut Bar & Restaurant.
The one thing you must see when you visit: The Country Races at Tauherenikau.
Grant Alecock and Marcus Darley
For more images including web exclusive images click on the "photo gallery" link above.
Story: Jane Hurley
Photographs: Jane Ussher
| 
|
| 
