Jane Ussher/Stuff
The woolshed interior was renovated with care to retain the robust simplicity of a working building.
NZ House & Garden’s Clever Conversions special edition features unique homes across Aotearoa, including this former Blenheim woolshed. Words by Sophie Preece, photographs by Jane Ussher.
Traces of the past are treasured by the owners of this historic Marlborough woolshed.
A desire to preserve what’s already there and a “sense of extended use” was behind the transformation of a 1957 woolshed into a home for a couple who moved to Marlborough to help develop the family vineyard.
The worn woolshed, with its faded and chipped red paint, has its long working life etched in its bones. Two sheep chutes still jut from a corrugated iron wall and wool continues to poke out of cracks in creaking wooden steps. It seems a sheep might appear at any moment.
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Jane Ussher/Stuff
The worn woolshed, with its faded and chipped red paint, has its long working life etched in its bones.
“Rather than tearing things down, it’s about preserving what’s here because you can’t rebuild history,” the owner explains.
“History can only ever be lost, and it’s lost all the time, whether you’re cutting down trees or pulling down old buildings rather than restoring them.”
That philosophy runs deep at Auntsfield Estate, named for Marlborough’s first vineyard and winery, established on the same block in 1873 by Scotsman David Herd.
The land, just outside Blenheim, came into the family’s possession after they fell in love with its dry hills and lush valley. It was only later they discovered the rich history that became the focus of their grape-growing and winemaking philosophy.
Together, the family restored Auntsfield’s 19th-century hillside cellar and repaired a tiny 1870s whare, once the property’s only dwelling.
They also developed buildings that fitted the Auntsfield story, including a derelict barn from outside Kaikōura, bought in exchange for two cases of wine and trucked to the property for a rebuild.
These days the barn is home to a 1920s convertible Ford truck used to deliver morning teas during harvest, a 1923 Dodge and the occasional candle-lit dinner party.
The woolshed interior was renovated with care, using oiled plywood walls and slatted ceilings to retain the robust simplicity of a working building.
Chutes once used to eject shorn sheep have been transformed into a slide and steps for younger members of the family, while original wooden gates were repurposed as wardrobe doors in a bedroom and the dining table for 12 was made from macrocarpa felled on the property.
In 2004 the late Wellington architect Sir Ian Athfield created a simple corrugated iron extension to provide extra living space and complement the original building.
He designed a bright modern wing adjoining the dim, moody woolshed – now the sleeping wing. The extension incorporates a contemporary living area, den, kitchen and dining, all opening to beautiful views.
The interior achieves a balance of colour, texture and pattern, from the thick swathes of shot taffeta curtains in the main bedroom, reflecting the colours of vine and flax outside, to a spare room bed layered with myriad rich fabrics.
Though they have different ways of doing things, the owners say they’re at one in what they want to achieve.
“Really it’s just a common theme of preserving what is already here.”
NZ House & Garden’s Clever Conversions special edition is available from Monday, December 5 for $16.20, in store, online at mags4gifts.co.nz or phone 0800 624 744.
