6 minute read
No regrets
The Covid-19 lockdown caused many of us to ask what we really wanted from life. For an Oamaru couple, the answer was to breathe new life into a heritage landmark
WORDS: NATHALIE BROWN • IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON
1 The Martins offer bed and breakfast facilities on the upper floor of
Oamaru’s grand old
Criterion Hotel.
2 Costumes? What costumes? This is the way the hotel hosts, Graeme (Herbert) and Marise
Martin, have dressed for 20 years.
Ask Marise Martin what motivated her and her husband, just months out of the Covid-19 lockdown, to take on the lease of the Criterion Hotel, an Oamaru heritage landmark, and she tells it straight.
“It was sheer madness,” she says. “We took it on because no-one else was doing it and it had sat idle for 12 months.”
Marise and Graeme (known as Herbert) Martin leased the 1877 Category 1 Criterion Hotel from its owner, the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust, in October 2020. With its balustrade festooned with urns, pinnacles and tympana, it is one of the most distinctive buildings in a town that is celebrated for its gorgeous architecture.
“Herbert and I both recognise the importance of maintaining the town’s European built heritage. It is so historically recent that we believe there is a need to keep the best examples of the way we were. We value old buildings for the craftsmanship and the stories they tell.”
Marise says the couple looked at taking over the ‘Cri’ a year before lockdown, but for a number of reasons it wasn’t the right time.
“However, Covid-19 was our catalyst,” she says.
“We reflected on the tenuous grip we both have on life. The virus might take us out tomorrow, so we asked ourselves, ‘What is the one thing each of us would regret not doing if that happened?’ And for both of us it was not having brought the Cri back to life. Restoring her was of great significance for both of us.”
Last year Marise gave up her 43-year career as a senior social worker, while Herbert resigned from his position in healthcare management.
“We picked up the lease four weeks before we opened the doors for the [Oamaru] Victorian Heritage Celebrations on 9 November 2020,” says Marise.
“It was a tight timeframe for renovation and restoration, but I like a nice tight deadline. It means you get it done.”
While they made no structural changes, they did a floor-to-ceiling renovation – scrubbing, sanding, varnishing, painting, laying new carpet and installing new lighting.
The public bar is a salute to Herbert’s aesthetic precision. He painted its walls in Resene colours Buff and Dragon – colours that convey a slightly dirty and smoky look, which appears so authentic that many outof-town patrons believe it’s the original 1877 decor.
See more of the story on our video:
www.youtube.com/HeritageNewZealandPouhereTaonga
He stained and varnished the wooden floor and bar several shades darker to achieve an aged look. Then the couple dressed the bar with original paintings by artist Watts Davies featuring misty images of the Cri, alongside entertainment posters, crocks, books, bottles and taxidermy.
Restoring the Cri also involved presenting the snug, dining room and ‘gentlemen’s lounge’ (ladies most welcome) as gracious spaces while keeping the upstairs accommodation rooms simple, with new iron beds and quality bedding.
“We wanted the hotel to have wide appeal and be accessible to families and older people and a place where women could feel safe,” explains Marise.
While some who had previously frequented the Cri found the changes a little too refined and took their custom elsewhere, many new patrons have been captivated by the revived atmosphere and the events the couple have staged in keeping with the style and atmosphere of the Cri.
It’s here where Marise is clearly in her element.
“We ran a series of Victorian-style Christmas banquets in November and December and called it the Colonial Christmas Table. Then there was the Robbie Burns night in late January. Tartan galore! [The event included] a grand ‘Address to a Haggis’ and other appropriate Scottish recitations.
“We’ve had high teas – morning and afternoon – for fundraisers. Our Pink Ribbon Day event drew in scores of people and later on the same day the Southland Jaguar Club booked out the dining room for lunch.
“Family groups from out of town have hired costumes from the Victorian Wardrobe around the corner in Harbour Street and then come here to eat in the dining room... I give a 15-minute address about the historical highlights of the hotel. People are more interested in the history than I would have guessed.”
Graeme Clark is Chair of the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust, which owns another 15 heritage buildings in Oamaru’s Victorian Precinct alongside the Criterion Hotel. “The trust has always considered the Cri the jewel in the crown within the precinct – a Victorian experience,” he says. “It’s the only one of our buildings still in original use.”
The frontages of the Cri, Harbour Street and lower Tyne Street are often used as locations for advertisements, television programmes and films.
1 In 1877 the architectural firm Forrester and Lemon designed the Criterion Hotel to be the grace note in a town already celebrated for the splendour of its buildings.
2 Guest accommodation includes a breakfast room and a private sitting area on the upper-floor landing.
3 The Martins’ aim was to make it look as if nothing had changed in the Cri since the 1870s, no matter how hard they had to work at it.
4 Herbert rarely takes a break, but when he does he is always on the lookout for new patrons.
5 The Cri specialises in regional craft beers and locally sourced provisions such as haggis, bangers, artisan meat pies and hearty vegetarian options.
2 3
4 5
As for the heritage values developed under the Martins, Graeme says, “Their tenancy is a perfect fit for the trust’s vision for the building and its role in the wider Victorian precinct. It’s exactly what we would have wanted. It gives the whole area a point of difference.
“The major challenge faced by Herbert and Marise, and also by the trust, is that, since the coming of Covid-19, people don’t want to share bathrooms with strangers. This means that the accommodation can’t be used to the best advantage as there are six bedrooms but only two bathrooms upstairs.”
However, says Graeme, there are a further eight rooms behind a walled-up hallway upstairs, which he says may be possible to restore and install with en-suites.
“The derelict space is lined in lathe and plaster and it is the only part of the precinct yet to be restored. So a new project would be great, ideally within the next five years,” beams Graeme.
“We’ve had plans drawn up. We could restore that part and open up the stone wall that separates it from the main body of the Cri. Might even have to put a lift in.”
‘All things Scottish’ is the theme of this year’s Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations, with a packed calendar of events on offer over five days.
These include annual activities such as the Garden Party in the Oamaru public gardens, a colourful street procession, penny-farthing cycle racing, and the Victorian Ball (or the Servants’ and Swaggers’ Shindig, as a more rustic alternative).
Lectures, walking tours, horse and carriage rides, croquet in the gardens and choral singing are also on the programme. The celebrations culminate in Sunday’s Victorian fête, where shoppers will find useful and beautiful things to give as Christmas presents.
No Victorian garb? No problem. The Victorian Wardrobe in Harbour Street was established to cater for just this type of occasion. www.vhc.co.nz. n
To see more of the Criterion Hotel, view our video story here: www.youtube.com /HeritageNewZealand PouhereTaonga
