Retired heritage architect Jackie Gillies, who moved to Auckland almost two years ago, first helped save the 1864 Williams Cottage, fronting Queenstown Bay, from demolition.
Her Queenstown Heritage Trust, formed in 1994, then raised $200,000 to buy half the land — "in order to preserve it, we realised we had to buy it".
The council, persuaded by Gillies’ husband, lawyer Warwick Goldsmith, who happened to be its planning committee chairman, contributed the other half of the purchase price.
The trust then fundraised another $176,000 to restore the cottage, which had fallen into disrepair.
Gillies, who’d fallen in love with old buildings when growing up in England, says after arriving in Queenstown in 1988 "I started breaking in the back door to poke around and have a look".
"This place is like my first child," she says.
Unfortunately, in 1999, just two years after the refurb, Queenstown suffered a record flood and the cottage was completely inundated, so it had to be restored again.
"It was heartbreaking," she says.
In more recent times, the cottage’s future’s been secured as it’s been earthquake-strengthened and had sprinklers added to fire-proof it.
The trust leases it out to afford the cost of maintenance, rates and insurance.
Gillies says they’re indebted to current tenant, Vesta gift store owner Tracie McVicar, for allowing the trust to hang interpretation panels in the front parlour room.
Having stepped down at last week’s AGM, Gillies’ role has now been taken by local lawyer Kerry O’Connell, who was already a trustee.
