REVIEW: A very cute cottage in Queen Charlotte Sound – the former Blythell family holiday homestead – is the focus of this episode of Moving Houses. It has been in the family for 100 years, but it’s due for demolition, unless someone can save it.
Neither a villa nor a bungalow, it has character aplenty, with a gorgeous sunny veranda, tiny-paned sash windows, and timber wall linings. But, it’s hard to imagine how many people could have lived in the tiny house – even with a lean-to kitchen and bathroom it’s a mere 90m², and the two bedrooms are accessed from the veranda.
Fortunately, Stuart and Trudy McConchie of Kaikōura have the desire and wherewithal to save it. The couple have a large historic home on a large site in the town, and they plan to bring the cottage onto their land – they love old homes and have been looking to downsize.
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Moving a 100-year-old cottage in Bythells Bay onto a truck and then a barge proves tricky for the team in the latest episode of Moving Houses.And this is how it looks from a distance.
It was love at first sight when they saw this beauty, and I can’t say I blame them – I spotted it myself and thought it looked amazing. Trudy says all it took was one look and she was hooked. She didn’t even need to see inside. “I thought that’s lovely. I can see myself sitting there,” she tells presenter Clarke Gayford.
They make a quick decision to save it from demolition and give it a new life “so it can stick around for another couple of hundred years”.
And the plan? They hope to barge it round the coast to Picton, then drive it by road to their site, and make it look as though it has always been there – on a piece of land just in front of their current home. The ocean will still be right in front of the house.
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This was the house as it appeared when it was listed with Bayleys.
But there’s a snag – the cottage has to be moved before they have time to lodge the appropriate paperwork with the council, so they won’t be able to live in it or renovate until that’s sorted. Spoiler alert: It’s not sorted during this show, which is a pity. We don’t get those lovely before-and-after photos.
When they do restore and extend the cottage, it will all be about keeping that character.
Gayford talks to cottage owner Angus McKenzie, who says his great-grandfather, a building merchant, rode down from Picton in 1916, and bought the property as a holiday home.
“There’s over 100 years of family history in that house,” he says. “The bishop came, as I understand it, and named the house Kōhanga, and that means cosy nest, and that’s what it’s been for the family. A place to congregate.”
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Trudy and Stuart McConchie watch as their house is prepped for the long journey across sea, land and river.
McKenzie plans to build a bigger holiday home for the family on the site, and is thrilled the old house is being saved from demolition.
Moving day arrives, and this is an ambitious relocation – it will take three days, cover 280km and involve both barge and truck rides, narrow bridges, roadworks and massive detours. Stuart and Trudy find it too stressful to come along for the ride.
Barge skipper Harry Bourke says it’s a shallow beach, and it’s definitely “a top of the tide job”. Boss Gerard Coffey of Coffey House Removals is overseeing everything. A good spring tide will help them take it out. And they have to avoid interisland ferry dockings. Even Angus McKenzie and family have made the trip to watch the old family home sail off, and they’re going to send her off with a flotilla.
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A winch helps pull the house onto the barge.
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Presenter Clarke Gayford stays with the house right from the first move.
He has “really mixed emotions”, including sadness, but also excitement about the changes.
There’s 40 tonnes going onto the barge, including the truck. But the barge can carry 500 tonnes. Incredible. They have just one hour to get the house and truck onboard before the tide turns. There’s a huge angle between the beach and the ramp and you wonder how the house will cope with that. They lift it right up to avoid this.
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And the house and truck are on board, ready for the trip to Picton.
There are great shots of the Blythell family descendants sailing alongside, not quite ready to say good-bye. I wonder if they are regretting this.
When they get to Picton, skipper Harry has to dock, lining the truck up by looking right through the house and out a door at the back. He’s a pro.
Then it’s back on the road for the long haul down to Blenheim for a night in the yard. Driver Richie says he hasn’t lost a house off the back yet. But it’s frequently a tight fit between trucks, trees, road signs and power lines. But these trucks have new tech that make levelling the house pretty simple.
Of course there’s a small tunnel on the coast road, and no chance of getting a house through that. So they take a detour that adds a whopping 140km to the trip, and they even ford the Kōwhai river. Good stuff.
But first, they pass through Seddon, “named after New Zealand’s second-best Prime Minister”, says Gayford – naturally.
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Crossing rickety one-lane bridges on the 140km detour prove especially difficult, as does a sharp hairpin.
The detour turns out to be incredibly gnarly. They rock up to the fast-flowing braided river and have to drive through. As they say, you wouldn’t tackle this in your Toyota Corolla. The house rattles and shakes, but is still in one piece.
Back on the main road, there is one overhead bridge they can’t get under. So they head off cross-country across a farmer’s paddocks, and then across rail lines. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
Finally, they arrive in Kaikōura, two nights after they started. This wasn’t a straighforward move, but it has paid off. The house is going to look amazing on Trudy and Stuart’s land.
At present, it’s still up on stilts, and it’s going to stay the way till that consent process happens. Which is a pity. The end of this show is rather a let-down because we would have loved to see it renovated.
We know it’s a juggling act to get everything lined up to complete a house relocation, just as it’s a juggling act to film the whole thing for a show with deadlines. Clarke will just have to return for a follow-up.
Moving Houses screens on TVNZ on Tuesdays at 7.30pm and TVNZ+
