Paradise

Miller House (centre) with the remains of Paradise House – its chimney stacks – in the foreground.

Revisiting Paradise WORDS: MATT PHILP

Despite being struck by a devastating fire in 2014, Paradise retains its significant heritage values

Paradise is a place on Earth. Specifically, it’s at the top of Lake Wakatipu, where in the mid-1880s William Mason, New Zealand’s first architect, commissioned the building of a summer house. Although isolated and modest in scale, the home inhabited a setting so majestic – at the edge of beech forest wilderness among the mountains – that when the Masons began taking in guests, Paradise was quickly established on the nascent 19th-century tourist circuit as an exceptional destination, worthy of the odyssey involved in reaching it.

Over time, as the original guesthouse (named Eden Grove by Mason, and later known as Paradise House) was expanded and new accommodation added, Paradise became a place to which visitors returned year after year, through generations. In 2008 its significance was recognised with a Category 1 listing.

Then, six years ago, lightning struck Paradise, sparking a fire that engulfed the guesthouse. An adjacent building, Miller House, was restored after suffering smoke and water damage and reopened for guests, but Eden Grove was razed to the ground. A handful of original flagstones and the lower portion of the chimneys are now all that remains. Pink House

LOCATION

Paradise lies on the eastern side of the Dart River at the head of Lake Wakatipu, close to the settlement of Glenorchy.

But what about Paradise’s Category 1 listing? Did that also go up in smoke?

Sarah Gallagher, Dunedinbased Heritage Assessment Advisor for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, reviewed Paradise’s heritage values after the fire. She visited in 2019, arriving via Glenorchy on a quiet afternoon, and was captivated.

“There’s something about beech forest that’s just magical. It was still, with dappled light, and because of the predator control they’re doing on the property, there are a lot of birds. At one point, we saw five white-tail deer burst out of the bush,” she says.

It was that raw beauty and proximity to wilderness that drew early tourists. Many were wealthy overseas visitors, health and pleasure seekers looking for ever more distant and remote resorts. Paradise, which became part of a circuit that included Te Aroha Mineral Springs, Rotorua, Hanmer Springs and Aoraki Mt Cook, certainly fitted the bill when it came to isolation. Guests took a train to Kingston, then a steamer to Glenorchy, followed by a buggy ride to the top of the lake.

In her report, Sarah describes the last chapter of the journey: “The trip through the landscape, narrated by the buggy driver, led tourists into a kind of mythical place; passing through Heaven’s Gate and over the River Jordan into Paradise. The descriptions and language set the scene for their experiences at Paradise House.”

The original homestead had been built by Queenstown carpenter Frederick Finch, a talented amateur photographer whose work is in a number of collections including Te Papa and the Hocken Collections. By 1890, capacity had been extended to 60 guests with the addition of the Miller House wing, and that was followed over subsequent decades by another single-storeyed accommodation annexe, three cottages and a trio of ‘Bushveldt’ cabins in a clearing in the beech forest. The heritage listing also includes gardens, a barn and stable, and a schoolhouse where the children of local scheelite miners were educated. (Scheelite is a tungsten mineral that can be refined to produce tungsten carbide, a tough, durable compound that was in high demand for World War I munitions use.)

None of the buildings were particularly fancy – ‘rustic charm’ probably best describes the accommodation experience. Guests came for the remoteness and the mountain views, and to explore wild places. Located in a valley between Pikirakatahi Mt Earnslaw and Ari Mt Alfred, Paradise was handy to the braided river valleys of the Rees and the Dart, and to a network of trails that included a route through the mountains to the head of Lake Te Anau, where adventurers could lodge at Glade House (built in 1896).

The Aitkens family, who took on Paradise in 1890 and ran it until 1943, offered guided wilderness expeditions, and there were opportunities for guests to fish, hunt and ride horses. Many returned again and again, drawn as much by the homely atmosphere created by David and Jeannie Aitkens as the spectacular landscape.

“Visitors came to Paradise with expectations in mind, shaped by word of mouth, by family experience, by guidebooks, by their own memories, and left shaped by both the people and the place they encountered,” writes Sarah, who notes that Paradise also functioned as a social hub for the surrounding community and was used for decades as a base for teaching outdoor education by the University of Otago and the University of South Australia.

Sarah came away from her visit convinced that Paradise’s heritage values had survived the loss of Eden Grove. Her formal assessment cites the place’s aesthetic, historical and social significance: “It provides an outstanding insight into the development of tourism in a remote location in 19th- and early-20th-century New Zealand.”

The fact that the current owner, the Paradise Trust, has received an $80,000 Otago Community Trust grant to help restore the historic barn is evidence, as quoted in the heritage assessment, “of the value of the history and purpose of the place as integral to the tourism industry”.

And there’s something else in play. The review of Paradise’s heritage values necessarily involved formal criteria that had to be met, boxes to be ticked. But consideration was also given to something more intangible.

Sarah talks about the atmosphere of the property, its broader aesthetic values, and the way that the ruins of Eden Grove are incorporated with the wider setting. She is pleased she made a site visit.

“You need to smell the smells, see the light and feel the place.”

Fire may have consumed a building, but Paradise is not lost.

heritage.org.nz/the-list/ details/7766