Ryman Healthcare has named its 23rd and newest retirement village, in Highgate, Dunedin, after her, something the Dunedin-raised former athletics star is delighted about.
"I've got an athletics track named after me and now a retirement village. I've gone from one extreme to the other," Yvette Corlett (nee Williams) said last night.
Mrs Corlett (81), accompanied by husband Buddy, last night formally opened the $18 million retirement village with Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull. The complex has 32 serviced apartments and 90 rest-home and geriatric hospital beds, 30 of them designated for dementia sufferers.
About 100 residents, staff, construction company representatives and city councillors attended the opening ceremony.
Guests included some of Mrs Corlett's family, longtime friend Dame Lois Muir, who played basketball with her in the early 1950s, and opera singer and guest performer at the opening ceremony Dame Malvina Major.
Dame Malvina said through the years she had crossed paths occasionally with Mrs Corlett, who was her inspiration.
"You won your medal when I was competing in athletics at school. I wanted to win one, too," Dame Malvina told her.
Mrs Corlett became the first New Zealand woman to win an Olympic gold medal when she won the long-jump at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland. She also reached the finals of the shot put and discus events.
After it was announced the Highgate village would be named after Mrs Corlett, staff were surprised to be given two items of memorabilia by people who had kept them safe through the decades, manager Jane Griffin said last night.
One was a framed copy of the front page of the Auckland Star trumpeting Miss Williams' Olympic success, and the other an album of newspaper clippings chronicling her regional, national, Empire Games, Commonwealth Games and Olympic success in long-jump, shot put and discus events.
The framed front page, donated by Bernice Keenan, of Auckland, will hang in the $18 million retirement village complex.
The album, compiled by Albert Kearns, of Mosgiel, was passed on to Athletics Otago, which decided it should be given to Mrs Corlett.
