Dream big

A little over four years ago, a Nelson couple took on a heritage restoration of epic proportions. Now, more than halfway through the project – undertaken largely by themselves – we check in on progress at The Gables

WORDS: TRACY NEAL • IMAGERY: VIRGINIA WOOLF

It had once been a grand home. More recently, however, The Gables had stood as a crumbling monument to the dreams and ambitions of Nelson’s early European settlers.

The 400-square-metre brick-and-plaster building, sited beneath the rolling hills of Waimea West, near Nelson, was certainly on its last legs when Keith and Lorraine Davis first noticed it in 2005, while on holiday from the UK.

Says Keith: “Every time we went down Waimea West Road, we’d always slow down – much like everyone else who slows down to take a look at this house.”

But it was less the building’s decayed state and more its distinctly British bones that caught the couple’s attention.

The Gables – built from bricks that were dug, prepared and then fired on the site – is modelled on a home in Suffolk, England, from where the original owner, John Palmer, came. The entrepreneur arrived in Nelson on the barque Phoebe in March 1843, building The Gables in 1865 as a family home and later operating it as a store and accommodation house and as a base for his carrying business.

Alison Dangerfield, Central Region Area Manager for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, says the distinctive building, believed to have been designed by James Thorn, who signed the specifications for the building, is one of only a few of its style in New Zealand.

Chasing the dream That holiday in 2005 convinced the Davises to move to New Zealand. They returned to the UK, sold up their building industry businesses, and farewelled the stress of busy lives. They admit it was a gamble.

Keith’s multiple gas-fitter qualifications weren’t recognised by New Zealand authorities, but a job offer on his arrival got them over the residency line.

They bought in to the Kiwi dream – initially in the form of a property in the Motueka area and a holiday home in the Marlborough Sounds – but the dream was not complete.

One day in September 2017, on another slow drive past The Gables, Keith noticed a small ‘For sale’ sign on the building, and within days it was theirs.

“I think the house drew us here,” says Lorraine, a firm believer that the spirits of long-dead former occupants beckoned them to the building. She and Keith suspect these spirits are manifested in the silent coloured orbs that occasionally bounce around rooms as they work.

A neighbouring bungalow bought by Keith’s father served as a base while they began the rebuild, which was delayed by a decline in the health of Keith’s father, and his subsequent death.

The bungalow was then sold, and Keith and Lorraine moved into The Gables in January 2020. The house had no bathroom and no running water, and rats were living in nests throughout its decaying scrim and sarking walls and ceilings.

“I’ve since taken six rats’ nests out of the roof of one room – I had six dustbins full of rat crap and more than a century’s worth of dust to deal with,” says Keith. Work in progress Alongside his experience as a gas service engineer, Keith trained in many other aspects of the construction trade and has undertaken most of the work himself. He has approached the colossal renovation “gable by gable” from a 60-page plan he drafted near the beginning of the process.

“The way I look at it, each room is really its own house. In simple terms, it’s segmented into six boxes downstairs and six upstairs, with a staircase and hallways.”

The east-facing lean-to, which now houses a stylish kitchen and living area complete with a butler’s pantry and laundry, was the first section of the house made habitable.

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1 The Gables’ long-sealed doorways have been reopened to reveal an original, well-worn wooden staircase that once led to the maids’ quarters.

2 Owners and restorers

Keith and Lorraine Davis outside the cedar-clad lean-to, which houses a new kitchen and living area.

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The cedar-clad weatherboard exterior now offsets white joinery made in the original, traditional colonial style. The rest of the home’s plaster exterior has been freshly painted in the heritage colour ‘Butter Yellow’.

Keith says a major milestone has been redoing the floors. Records show that although the base runners were mataī, borer had destroyed the floors, which were made largely of kahikatea, and poor ventilation at ground level had caused wet rot.

He says the challenges have been less about the physical work than higher-than-expected costs – and finding an expert who can craft the classical Egg and Dart plaster cornices to the standard required.

“It’s a traditional English build so it didn’t frighten us at all. I knew all the floors upstairs and down were knackered when we bought it. I knew all we’d have was an east wall and a west wall, and a couple of internal walls holding them together.”

Realising the vision The grandson of the building’s original owner, a Nelson businessman and horticulturist also named John Palmer, still farms part of the original land at Waimea West. He says he is delighted to see this significant and important restoration going ahead.

“To see someone doing this is just fantastic. There wasn’t the capacity within the family to do it, but Keith is doing a tremendous job.”

John says he and his cousin, former prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who had earlier investigated ways to salvage the building, had calculated restoration costs at several million dollars.

The restoration of the Category 1 building has been supported by two grants from the National Heritage Preservation Incentive Fund, which provides incentives to encourage the conservation of privately owned heritage places recognised on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero.

Alison Dangerfield says the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Board, which allocates the funding, did not place onerous requirements on the rebuild. The aim was to achieve the best possible outcome and the grants were given as a helping hand.

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1 Keith approached the renovation from a 60-page plan he drafted.

2 Each room is being stripped and relined.

3 The Gables is now freshly painted in heritage colour

Butter Yellow.

4 A stylish new kitchen is a central feature of the lean-to.

5 One of several newly renovated lounges.

6 With its dormer attic interior, an upstairs master bedroom is reminiscent of a cosy

English cottage.

7 Keith has expertly tiled the ensuite bathrooms that will complete each bedroom renovation.

“A project involving a building of this age and complexity is huge and involves so many processes.”

She says the building is well known throughout the NelsonTasman region and there is a high level of enthusiasm for its revival. “It will be a joy to look at once it is completed.”

Keith says that is likely still a couple of years away. The home has been reroofed, work on the north gable is almost finished, and the focus is now on the south gable before moving on to the middle gable.

He credits Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga for guiding the process in a way that respects not only the cultural necessity to preserve our heritage but also the couple’s own capabilities and knowledge as renovators in a foreign land.

Keith and Lorraine envisage The Gables again becoming a family home, but they are also thinking ahead to its potential use as accommodation.

While they haven’t once regretted taking on the project, Lorraine admits that the dust, which still manages to seep through sealed doorways cloaked in sheets, can be trying.

Keith says he is enjoying being occupied by the project, but when it gets a bit much they pack up and go fishing. His single piece of advice to anyone thinking of taking on a similar project is to make sure you have either the expertise to do most of it yourself or seriously deep pockets.

The final stage of what will likely be a five-year project will be landscaping, after which The Gables – and its ghosts – can rest easy.

A RESTORATION IN PROGRESS

When the Davises took ownership of The Gables, its north and south exterior walls had bulged and were close to collapse. Keith says the north wall had pulled away from the building by 75mm, and the south wall by 50mm, most likely due to the weight of the original slate roof.

David Vanstone, who owned The Gables from 2000 to 2003, had secured the walls with six tie rods running the length of the building. One of Keith’s first jobs was to remove the failing walls and rebuild them in concrete block, plastered over, with outlines etched into them to replicate the original ashlar masonry.

The floors downstairs are being rebuilt with hardfill and overlaid with reinforced concrete, insulation and a floating timber floor of imported oak. Tradespeople have been employed to help with the concrete flooring and some of the building work.

Each room is stripped back to accommodate electrical cabling and insulation before being relined in GIB plasterboard.

Upstairs, the floors are being entirely rebuilt before work can commence on the ceilings and walls.

Custom-made wooden joinery has replaced many of the rotten window frames. Keith says it was a major mission, but made easier by the expertise of their joiner, who is familiar with the irregularities of old houses.

The installation of new services required oversight by iwi and an archaeologist. The property required new drains, rainwater tanks and a septic field of a size suitable for a property with six bedrooms, each with an ensuite, or a 12-person home.

Long-sealed doorways have also been reopened to let in more light to the building’s core, and to showcase a well-worn wooden staircase that once led upstairs to the maids’ quarters. n