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The door to Barbara Webster and Duncan Galletly’s Greytown holiday home has been kicked in numerous times over the years. “Bashed to bits,” says Barbara with a smile. But not for the reasons you might think. This substantial building, which the couple moved on to a Greytown section in 2008, was once a Wairarapa landmark, the old Tinui pub. “I think people just turned up and belted on the door until they were let in.”
The Tinui Hotel was never a pretentious building – homespun rather than high chic. The hotel part was a series of narrow, cubicle-like bedrooms. It’s been flooded at least three times and mud and river water have left their mark upon the floorboards, along with the indentation from the bar and beer stains where the kegs were stored. Nothing was left of the original fireplaces, the walls were a maze of ancient rats’ nests and aluminium ranchsliders loomed large. In short, it was nothing flash, just a solid 1931 building with a no-nonsense outlook and a whole load of space. Exactly the kind of holiday retreat that Wellington-based architect Barbara and her anaesthetist husband Duncan had been looking for.
You see, when they gather with their blended family of six children (five of whom are now grown up, with some living overseas; Rose, 15, is still at home) around the battered French pine dining table, there are rather a lot of them: 16 adults and two grandchildren (“so far,” says Barbara). Not easy to fit them all into a bijou B&B or a cosy weekend cottage. “But you do all want to live together, as opposed to just joining up for lunch and dinner.” So, when Barbara and Duncan spotted the old Tinui pub for sale (with nary an offer in three years), just as a semi-rural section came up for sale in Greytown, it seemed as if the heavens were smiling on them.
 Or not. Many locals were afraid – quite understandably – that shifting the old building would rip the heart from their tiny community. A sympathetic Barbara and Duncan offered to walk away from the sale if the community could find the funds to buy the place within a year. In the end, things were settled in the Environment Court. Barbara and Duncan were allowed to move the pub and an even older 100-year-old worker’s cottage (moved on to the hotel site in 1969) stayed in Tinui as the public bar.
From the outside, the old hotel, now renamed Kowhiti, looks to have taken on a new lease of life. From the inside, it is quite simply gorgeous – beachy, light-filled and as unpretentious and casual as ever. Creamy walls and blonded floor-boards make for a simple, relaxed atmosphere. The furniture is an eclectic mix of rustic antiques, renovated second-hand pieces and the odd design classic, such as the stunning cherry-red Noguchi sofa and the Charles and Ray Eames chairs around the dining table. Old wooden beams found in the ceiling have been recycled into beautiful, hefty shelves and the walls are studded with works by artist friends.
The lights are a mixture of George Nelson shades, junk shop finds and rice paper lanterns. “We try not to have anything really precious here,” says Barbara, “so that everyone feels comfortable. Our kids use the place with their friends and we rent it out, so we don’t want people to feel worried about breaking things.”
But she does have a favourite feature – the delicate lights in the dining room which came from Slovenia. “We carried them back on our knees because they were so gorgeous.”
Upstairs, the bedrooms share a feeling of serenity, with sisal flooring, antique oriental furniture and Indian cotton bedspreads.
A beautiful old tapa cloth hangs in every room. Barbara’s decorating philosophy? “Fill it with things you love.”
This house, she says, was meant to be shared and they’re happy to rent it out to other families and groups (see kowhiti.com). “It’s domestic architecture and it doesn’t belong to that grand old stuffy house variety. It was always meant to have lots of people in it.”
Since the whole family loves to cook, they kept the formidable commercial oven from the hotel and surrounded it with stainless steel. “It’s a big working kitchen – an old pub kitchen.” Duncan, whose passion is the history of food (he has more than 3000 New Zealand cookbooks), has planted an organic apple orchard in old-fashioned cider varieties.
Barbara loves the fact that her grandchildren will grow up with the memories of holidays spent here. “My little grandson, who lives in an apartment in Sydney, couldn’t believe things like the lawns and cows and bunny rabbits. It’s rural New Zealand.”
For web-exclusive images click on the "photo gallery" link above
Story: Jane Hurley
Photographs: Grant Sheehan
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