American Paul Brainerd, the co-developer of The Headwaters Glenorchy Eco Lodge, who died last month, aged 78, has left behind extraordinary examples of conservation and philanthropy.
In 2014, Allied Media revealed Mr Brainerd - credited with pioneering desktop publishing in the 1980s - and his wife Debbi had bought the run-down Glenorchy Holiday Park and three surrounding sections.
Already owners of a holiday home at nearby Wyuna Preserve, the couple had been watching the park’s ‘‘for sale’’ sign for some time.
‘‘One day she came back and said, ‘this place needs some tender loving care’.’’
They bought the property and that year reopened the camp shop as Mrs Woolly’s General Store.
Then, following a substantial project, they launched Camp Glenorchy as an accommodation complex with a two-fold purpose.
Firstly, it exhibited world-leading regenerative design and exceptional local art and craftsmanship.
Secondly, all profits would be put into a community trust to assist Glenorchy.
Fittingly, at the recent Queenstown Business Awards the business not only won the excellence in sustainability and environmental category, but also the supreme award.
‘‘This project has been about energy and beauty and demonstrating those to a world-class level,’’ Mr Brainerd said at the time.
The couple had also constructed a 100ha environmental education project, Island-Wood, on Bainbridge Island in Seattle.
More than 12,000 children per year, many from economically challenging conditions, experience nature-based learning at the Washington project.
Mr Brainerd said his passion for conservation and the environment sprang from holidays in Oregon where his family had a cabin in a national forest.
‘‘My first steps were at that cabin when I was just 18 months old, so I really grew up in the outdoors.’’
While working at his company Aldus Corp - which he later sold to Adobe - Mr Brainerd met a distributor in Auckland who recommended places he should go around New Zealand.
After meeting his future wife Debbi in a Seattle lift, their first holiday together was in New Zealand to walk the Routeburn and Hollyford tracks.
This led them to purchase a Wyuna Preserve section and build on it.
The couple’s Glenorchy friend Lesley Van Gelder said Mr Brainerd was a pioneer whose personal interest was giving back, ‘‘and what he did was learn how to be a great philanthropist’’.
She praised the Brainerds for retaining their staff during Covid and said the couple’s community trust was ‘‘incredibly powerful’’.
