All the pieces of a fairytale

A Dunedin family fell head over heels for this historic cottage. Kim Dungey reports.

Bella O’Mahony still remembers the moment she first set eyes on this fairytale cottage.

At the end of a long, gently-rising path, she and husband Rory found a central city hideaway with a steeply-pitched roof, scalloped barge boards and inviting veranda. Inside, there were exposed beams, diamond pane windows and a beautiful staircase.

It was the perfect property for someone who describes herself as a hopeless romantic.

Promotional material pointed out the ‘‘colonial sweetheart’’ needed work, but Mrs O’Mahony saw only potential.

‘‘It had a lot of surface-level [issues] like random holes in ceilings and things, which I think put a lot of people off but which didn’t actually take that much to fix,’’ she says.

Mr O’Mahony adds that when they moved in with their 2-year-old daughter, Dusty-Rose, in the winter of 2019, there was no heating apart from open fires and no working plugs on the first floor, so they had to run extension cords upstairs for heating and anything else.

The three-bedroom house is rumoured to have been built by colourful whaler and runholder Johnny Jones in the mid- to late-1860s (a Heritage New Zealand report puts construction at pre-1879). Possibly intended for one of Jones’ daughters, it is thought to have arrived from England as a kitset — a happy coincidence for Mr O’Mahony, who once worked as a frame and truss detailer.

He says it includes timbers from both the northern hemisphere and New Zealand. The floorboards are Baltic pine, the staircase is kauri and some of the nails are hand-forged.

‘‘The accuracy in the joinery — for being completed with the tools of the time — it’s very impressive.’’

By the 1930s, the cottage had been extended, with the library gaining a bay window and a music room being added for the then-owners, a musical French family.

Named Wildwood, the property came fully furnished with ‘‘furniture, fur stoles, random ornaments, the entire works of Thackery and lots of Scottish literature’’.

A painting with a French inscription was discovered under the stairs and the garden shed was packed with more furniture and gardening tools.

One of the couple’s first priorities was to have the house rewired. Meanwhile, their roofing fund went on the decidedly ‘‘unromantic’’ task of laying a new main sewer line.

Not afraid to get their hands dirty, they also ripped up orange carpet and brown lino, hung wallpaper and added a heat pump; the three fireplaces are for ‘‘ambience, not heating’’.

In the kitchen, they replaced the bench top and swapped the upper cupboards for open shelving. As with the bathroom, the makeover is a ‘‘temporary’’ one until they can do something more substantial.

Painting has made a ‘‘massive difference’’, according to Mrs O’Mahony, who has done most of that job with the help of family and mixed her own paints when she couldn’t find the colours she wanted.

Once cream, the library is now a dark smoky green and in the bathroom, a rich inky blue has transformed the previously ‘‘salmon-peach’’ walls.

It was only after they had moved in they noticed someone had encased the beams in laminate, then had a change of heart and carefully painted them to look like bare wood again.

‘‘In Dusty’s room, the beams are quite low, so you can see the brush strokes,’’ she says, describing the painstaking work as ‘‘commitment to the vibe.’’

Packed with op shop finds, the house is also full of art — some of it by Mrs O’Mahony, who does watercolour botanical paintings and illustration and who also works with clay. Other works are by her mother, sister and artist friends.

When asked about the interior style, the couple describe it as ‘‘eclectic, cosy and quirky’’.

Their favourite areas include the landing at the top of the stairs, with its sloping roof and leadlight window, and the former music room (now the living room), which has a surprisingly large window overlooking the garden.

‘‘A lot of the house is really dark and atmospheric, but it’s nice coming to this room where it’s often light and you get all the green from outside coming in.’’

Originally, the property had extensive lawns and an orchard, but by time they moved in, the 1000sq m grounds had seen better days — according to the 2019 real estate advertisement, they had only recently been ‘‘uncovered’’ and needed a ‘‘gardener’s touch’’.

Occasionally they have working bees, when friends help them ‘‘try to rein in the wilderness’’, but mostly they chip away at it on weekends, Mr O’Mahony says, adding that creating a lawn for Dusty-Rose to play on involved clearing, levelling and retaining a sloping area near the house: ‘‘Obviously I can’t get any machinery up here, so I’ve done it all by hand.’’

Having to fell a couple of large, dead trees and to dig up the existing path for the sewerage line only added to the challenges.

Renovating the kitchen and bathroom, and painting the exterior of the house a darker colour are still on their to-do list.

But for now, they are enjoying the home’s sense of history and the fact they can walk to the Octagon in 15 minutes, yet still feel removed from the city.

Like all good fairytales, this story has a happy ending.

While Mr O’Mahony could be tempted by an equally-quirky property, his wife vows she is never moving.

‘‘We both feel really honoured that we get to be caretakers of this beautiful historic home and can continue to update it in ways that still respect and cherish it's original character,’’ she says.