After investing four years and more than $11million into historic ‘‘Earnscleugh castle’’, its owners are finally ready to open it to the public.
The painstaking restoration project by Ryan Sanders and Marco Creemers included nine months battling the Central Otago District Council over the exterior, 18 months completing earthquake strengthening, three years living apart and one point where they seriously considered walking away.
Now most of the work is finished, they say they are ‘‘ecstatic’’.
‘‘The dream we had four years ago has come to fruition exactly how we envisaged, just slightly more fabulous.’’
Founder of the Haka Tourism Group, Mr Sanders first learned the abandoned mansion between Alexandra and Clyde was for sale when one of his staff flagged it as a possible site for luxury backpackers’ accommodation.
He had other ideas, sending the link to his husband with a note saying, ‘‘stuff that’’.
‘‘We’ll live there.’’
Within days of seeing the listing, they were flying south for a viewing.
Vacant for seven years, the early 1920s property resembled a ‘‘really bad student flat’’ with rotting carpet, black mould and collapsed ceilings.
Buckets collected water from the leaking roof and greenery grew in the cracked swimming pool.
The only ground-floor toilet was beyond the back door and a total absence of insulation made it colder inside than outside.
However, Mr Creemers says they instantly fell in love with the category 1 heritage-listed landmark: ‘‘halfway down the drive, we both sort of looked at each other and said, ‘we’re going to buy this, aren’t we?’’’.
Unable to find local accommodation, the pair made half the house habitable for their contractors. But the renovations got off to a rocky start.
‘‘They spent the first week in there but then refused to live in it because they thought it was haunted,’’ he says, adding they’ve never sensed anything supernatural themselves but a couple of psychics have visited the property,
‘‘One said it was clean. The other was sick on the lawn and wouldn’t come past the back gate.’’
The Earnscleugh story is one of bold dreams and changing fortunes.
Otago magistrate Alfred Strode, who leased the sprawling sheep station in 1862, grew rich supplying the needs of goldminers.
But within just a few years, rabbits reportedly introduced for sport by his farm manager and partner, William Fraser, had begun to strip the hillsides of vegetation.
At first, Fraser protected the rabbits to the point of prosecuting poachers. By the time he and other farmers realised just how much trouble they had created for themselves, it was too late.
The next leaseholder walked off the property, reduced from wealthy to near-penniless after a harsh winter killed much of his flock and rabbits had grazed the hills bare.
Then came Stephen Spain, who was born in a tent on the banks of the Clutha River during the gold rush.
In his first five months on the property, Spain employed 32 workers, who trapped and poisoned 250,000 rabbits.
Initially, he cashed in on the skins but during World War 1, he opened a canning factory in Alexandra. At its peak, the plant employed 90 workers and could process 15,000 rabbits a day.
Spain secured a lucrative contract with the British War Office but the marketing behind his success was questionable: British troops believed they were eating chicken and cans destined The ‘‘biggest drama’’ was their battle to be allowed to plaster the exterior of the house, as the architect originally intended.
A council heritage consultant said the unfinished look was part of the building’s heritage value and the bricks shouldn’t be covered.
While they eventually got consent and hope to make a start next summer, it delayed work by a year, cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars and caused a lot of stress.
‘‘Before we decided that we were going to fight it, we were in a dark place.’’
‘‘We thought we should maybe put it back on the market.’’
Because the property was always meant to be plastered, lower-quality bricks were used and the brick mortar was left rough and exposed to the weather, Mr Creemers says.
The $700,000 worth of plastering will not only reduce dampness and draughts but be part of the earthquake strengthening work.
This has involved taking all the ceilings down and the architraves and skirting boards off and tying all the joists and rafters to the brick walls.
‘‘Instead of installing rigid steel frames through the house, a more fluid system was used by bolting the brick walls to the internal timber structure.
‘‘We also added carbon plates on the brick walls inside and plan to include carbon fibre mesh in the exterior plaster.’’
With the renovations costing about triple what they had budgeted, the previously mortgage-free couple now have a mortgage and have put retirement plans on hold. The three-bedroom coach house was opened to visitors last year and they’re preparing to welcome the first guests to the castle in September.
Offerings will include seven-day wellness retreats, complete with yoga, sound healing and vitamin infusions.
‘‘We pretty much sold everything we had to fund our retirement — businesses, properties and stuff — to finish the house,’’ Mr Creemers says, admitting they might not have started if they’d known this at the beginning.
Originally the property was just going to be their private home but they decided to run it as a bed and breakfast. Now they’re thinking of seeking consent to operate as a small hotel, which would allow them to have more than six guests in the main building.
‘‘We did come into it having A, B and C plans ... We didn’t really think we’d end up using plan C but that’s life isn’t it? And we absolutely love living here.’’
More than 100 years after Spain built his stately home, the pair are pleased to have ‘‘finished the job’’ he started.
‘‘From what I’ve read, it sounds like he was a bit of a rogue ...,’’ Mr Creemers says, ‘‘but it [seems] like he was a good family man and into leaving a legacy’’.
‘‘We have a lot of admiration for him because he was entrepreneurial. He turned something that was a problem into something that was very profitable and that’s clever.’’
Mr Sanders says they ‘‘couldn’t be more proud’’ of what they have achieved, adding the project was a four-year, ‘‘full-on’’ marathon.
‘‘It was like sitting next to Liam Lawson, [riding] shotgun in a Formula One car with no roof, just holding on for dear life.’’
