As scientists themselves, Bill and Daphne Lee like the idea that the man who built their house about 140 years ago was also a scientist.
Leithendel, a steeply gabled wooden homestead in Dunedin's Leith Valley, has been home to the Lee family for more than 40 years.
"It is nice living in a house when you know something about the other people who lived there," says Mrs Lee.
"We are sort of part of the history of the house now."
Leithendel's story began not in Leith Valley, but in the Town Belt below Roslyn, where is was built by one of Dunedin's early meteorologists, Henry Skey, probably some time in the late 1860s.
In 1884, however, Mr Skey was told by the city council all homes built on the Town Belt had to be shifted.
"We have one half of a very rude letter from the council telling him he had until X time to move the building or they would take over."
The house was moved to Leith Valley in three sections and placed on foundations of large beams laid on stone.
Until 1903, Mr Skey sent out daily weather readings, first from his city site and then from Leith Valley.
His observatory, with a large telescope, now believed to be in Ashburton, was sited where the Lees now have their clothesline.
Mr Skey was also the chief draughtsman in the Lands and Survey office.
Running up the hill behind Leithendel is six acres of bush, which Mr Lee, a botanist, has been trying to return to its original state.
During their time in the house, the Lees have found lots of memorabilia, such as old newspapers and photographs under the floorboards, and an old watch that had fallen behind a workbench, as well as filling albums and folders with photographs, letters and documents that tell the history of the house.
"We often get children and grandchildren coming back to look around [the house] and sometimes we know more about their great-grandparents than they do because we have accumulated all this stuff."
One of his daughters had arthritis and used a wheelchair.
The downstairs door frames all have dents and scratches at the same height where the wheelchair must have scraped against them.
Mr Skey lived in the house until he died in 1914 and it was then owned by five different families, two of which only had it for a short time, before the Lees bought it.
The size of the house and the acres of bush that came with it were what first attracted the Lees to the home. They bought it at a time when old houses were not fashionable and it cost about the same as "your average brick bungalow", says Mr Lee.
When they first moved in, some friends said to them "What a lovely house", to which they replied "Why don't you come and live with us", which they did.
"It is a friendly house, good for a lot of people," says Mrs Lee.
More than 60 boarders, including family members, friends and students, have since lived with the Lees.
The house has five bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs and four living areas downstairs, including a formal dining room, a breakfast room and a large farmhouse-style kitchen.
"It is a lovely summer and morning house, but in the winter it is quite cold," says Mr Lee.
When they moved in its condition was "pretty bad" and every time it rained they had to run upstairs with buckets to catch leaks in every room.
There was no insulation and "when it blew the scrim moved in and out".
A coal range was the sole means of cooking and there were no cupboards for storage.
Unlike many old houses which have either been added to, or converted into flats, much of the house is in its original state with few alterations to the structure of the house, which still features the original Minton-tile floor in the front entrance, the original staircase and nearly all of the original doors.
"Very little has been done to change it since the time it was built. If Henry and [his wife] Sarah came back they would find all the rooms and doors etc in the same place."
The Lees have re-roofed the house, with help from the Historic Places Trust, repainted the outside, rewired and replumbed it, moved the bathroom and redone the kitchen twice.
The second kitchen makeover was designed by their daughter who is an architect, a career choice which may have been influenced by growing up in the beautiful old home they think.
Future plans include redoing the bathroom, perhaps adding another bathroom and making a start on the former formal dining room, which has not been touched since the 1930s.
The house was given a category one classification from the Historic Places Trust about 20 years ago - a classification that puts it in the same league as the Dunedin Railway Station.
The style of the house, with its steeply pitched gables and elaborate barge boards, is known as carpenter gothic.
The weatherboard walls include vertical boards on the front and two sides of the house, with boards running from the ground to the gutter of the second floor without a join.