Hall in together

Hall

IN TOGETHER

Through years of hard work, upcycling efforts and staying true to a vision, a young Auckland couple have proven themselves worthy custodians of an inner-city heritage hall

WORDS: CLAIRE MCCALL • IMAGERY: JASON DORDAY

For a girl who was born in a converted stable, Jessica Britten has come a long way. She may have moved north from the Christchurch property originally built, brick by brick, by her dad John, but her father’s love of heritage buildings and his ability to redesign just about anything have followed her.

Some might say she inherited his fearlessness too. When Jess and her husband Warren Durling took on the renovation of a 1907 hall in Ponsonby, Auckland, they were wading into waters they admit they knew little about.

The building came on the market in 2015, and was just around the corner from where the couple was renting. The hall – built by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), then owned by the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes – was a local landmark. Known as the Forresters’ Hall, it is included in the Renall Street Historic Area and is identified as Category A in Auckland Council’s heritage schedules.

“We were curious to see inside this beautiful old building and had been looking for somewhere to buy for two years,” says Jess.

From the exterior, its two-storey brick-and-plaster face was a solid example of symmetrical design – straight and simple with only a hint of decoration: a parapet with the IOOF insignia formalising its provenance. Inside, it had its issues.

“The floor just beyond the entrance was so spongy it was like a trampoline,” recalls Jess.

The front part was divided into two rooms: one contained a tiny kitchenette with a Formica bench and five beer fridges, the other a bathroom with urinals. Beyond this was the hall itself, a cavernous space with a 5.8-metre stud, the walls lined top to toe with memorabilia. Of course, Jess and Warren loved it.

The couple had six weeks to do due diligence and began to research the potential and pitfalls of its heritage classification.

“We spoke to a family friend who had developed heritage projects, we talked to Heritage New Zealand [Pouhere Taonga] and we consulted Auckland Council,” says Jess.

Good information came from all quarters, but the path was not clear cut.

“There is no black-and-white rulebook that tells you what you can and cannot do. We realised we’d have to figure it out alongside the experts in the field.”

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4 They put in their tender bid and crossed their fingers.

“We were so passionate about the hall that we included a letter explaining that we wanted to raise our family here; we promised to honour its heritage and its history.”

When the good news came in, they felt like they had won the lottery. Itching to get started, they asked architect Sam Atcheson for a topline concept to transform the turn-of-the-century space, once redolent with regalia and tradition, into a forever home.

The plan was to turn the former kitchen and bathroom on the northern elevation into two bedrooms with en-suites, make the existing meeting room on the upstairs level a main bedroom suite, and locate the kitchen within the lofty volume of the hall.

“We never thought about partitioning off spaces within it – that would have been criminal,” says Jess.

But before they could get stuck in to the modernising, work was needed to repair the leaking roof and gutters and cracks in the façade.

To understand the complexities, and wanting to do right by the building, they commissioned conservation specialists Burgess Treep & Knight Architects for a full report. It detailed the heritage fabric of the hall, from footings to rafters and everything in between, and assigned a weighting to each part in terms of what was most important to save.

After this, a four-year haul began.

“We had to redo the foundations at the front of the building and replace the floor throughout, which was a patchwork mess,” explains Jess.

Once the diggers had been in and a new roof was on, they reinstated the windows to the street and a set of original double doors, complete with brass handles, that divide this space from the main hall.

The quadruple-brick dividing wall was stripped back to its raw form and a pokey staircase that led upstairs was moved from the entrance to the main body of the building.

Jess says: “We’re both six-feet tall so it just wouldn’t work, but it’s the only structural change we made.”

As Robin Byron, Senior Conservation Architect at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, remarks: “The commitment that Jess and Warren put in to the conservation and adaption of the hall, with some guidance from conservation architect Graeme Burgess, is impressive.

“The challenge of living in the place during most of the upgrade work is a testament to their determination and resilience. It was a true labour of love.”

Although the pair relied on the expertise of skilled builders and engineers for the fundamental part of the journey, they weren’t averse to getting hands on with the tools.

Jess, with occasional assistance from the couple’s daughter Stevie (now 2), was like a bloodhound in her mission to source fixtures and finishes to co-ordinate with the character of the hall. She is a great believer in upcycling, can’t tolerate waste and has an aesthete’s appreciation of materials.

DOCUMENTING THE JOURNEY

Jess started the Instagram page Hall We Need (www.instagram.com/hallweneed/) in 2015 as a visual diary of the restoration, renovation and decoration of the heritage-listed hall. The page now has more than 11,000 followers.

“People were fascinated by the project, and it just grew naturally,” she says. Jess thinks the popularity of the page is an encouraging sign: it shows that a younger generation has a respect for and interest in breathing new life into these types of heritage property.

“We weren’t experts. It’s real and uncontrived and people responded to that,” she says.

The story behind the logo for the hall, on the website and Instagram page, is interesting. Very early on, Jess and Warren received a letter from Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga discussing their proposed plan.

“I immediately noticed the incredible handwriting on the letter. I was enchanted (*cough* obsessed) with it as I thought it would make an amazing typeface/‘logo’,” says Jess. She contacted the letter writer, Robin Byron (Senior Conservation Architect), who kindly wrote ‘Hall We Need’ a few dozen times on a piece of paper, one iteration of which ultimately became the logo.

“It might not be a significant or noticeable detail to others, but I love knowing the story and connection behind it,” says Jess. n 5

The kitchen, which sits to one side of the open-plan space, is a case in point. The couple bought it secondhand and have relocated it twice since then. Jess painted the solid tawa cabinetry, used leftover oak from the new staircase to build a breakfast bar, and added some brass panels to the front of the island, which she had rescued from a refit of a restaurant where she’d once contracted as a communications specialist.

“One of the builders said I could get a new MDF kitchen for less, but why would I want that when I can have something with integrity?” she asks.

Choosing materials with character and depth was important – even if that meant Jess had to rummage around in the off-cut bins.

That’s where she found the broken tundra stone that features on the floor of the main ensuite. She repurposed it ‘crazy-paving’ style, saving the planet and on the budget like a DIY superhero.

Sometimes though, repurposing materials can prove the expensive choice – like reusing ceiling rafters as shelving. But it was worth it: “You only have that opportunity once,” says Jess.

When it came to furnishing the hall, the same philosophy applied. “Dad’s ethos was to take something old and broken and make it beautiful. He removed the

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fear of getting it wrong and encouraged us to give it a go,” says Jess.

And she did, reupholstering a vintage sofa and ottoman herself, making the coffee table by pouring concrete cylinder legs to support a recycled marbleslab top, and sanding back a black-painted, bobblefooted bed bought on Trade Me.

Jess and Warren say the finished result is a privilege to live in; they don’t miss a garden with so many green spaces nearby to visit, and they’re justifiably proud of their hard-won achievement.

“We love sharing this building with others; we are only custodians after all,” says Jess.

If you ever spot Jess and little Stevie sitting on the front steps eating ice cream as they watch the world go by, stop and say hello. You might just be invited for a peek inside.

1 The hall, built in 1907, stands proudly next to typical Ponsonby cottages.

2 The main bedroom was once a meeting room for the Royal Antediluvian

Order of Buffaloes.

3 An office nook.

4 The new staircase leading from the main hall.

5 Graeme Burgess helped the couple to identify the most important heritage features.

6 A quadruple-brick wall stripped back to reveal its beauty.

Seeing the light

WORDS AND IMAGE: ERICA SINCLAIR

“If we get one shot of the aurora, our job will be done and we can go home,” Dr Rangi Matamua said to me as we were flying over the Southern Alps on our way to Invercargill.

We were on our way to Murihiku, where Rangi was to present a wānanga about Māori astronomy, star lore and, of course, Matariki, before we went to the Takitimu Mountains to host another wānanga with several Ngāi Tahu members (I was there to take photos for his book Matariki: The Star of the Year).

Rangi was telling me about how he had looked up the weather and it was supposed to be quite cloudy, but he was still holding out hope for the ‘money shot’. I was sceptical, but we had two nights in Bluff, therefore two chances to catch it.

So that same evening Rangi, associate professor Dr Hemi Whaanga and I set out to take photos of the sunset from Bluff Hill. Hemi and I wandered around the different areas of the hill, taking snaps of the harbour and town lights below.

Meanwhile Rangi stood at the lookout gazing south, hoping for the aurora to appear and saying things like, “It looks green over there”.

We scoffed at him – “No, you want it to look green over there” – and carried on meandering about the hill. Then we began to notice other people arriving with their cameras and pulling out their phones.

Rangi was getting really insistent now – “Hey guys, I think it really does look green over there!” – and we heard a few of the other people mentioning the Southern Lights and magnetic somethings.

So we ran back to the top, pointed the camera south and took a long exposure. He was right! The green and purple peaks were bright and luminous and glowed on the back of my camera screen, and as the night went on they got brighter and brighter to the naked eye. We got so carried away taking photos of the aurora that we stayed out until 3am.

This is my favourite image from the night: Te Rau Aroha Marae – the world’s southernmost marae, with its unique design by the late Cliff Whiting – and the Southern Lights.

So of course, we got the money shot, but we didn’t go home; we stayed and completed our commitments.

TECHNICAL DATA

Camera: Canon EOS 7D Lens: 13mm Exposure: 10sec, f4.5