Queenstown's 140-year-old Dominican convent is on borrowed time.
Home to the resort's Dominican Sisters for more than 130 years, the stone building has been unoccupied since 2003 and is considered earthquake-prone.
St Joseph's Queenstown parish priest Father Jaime Lalaguna said the parish council decided to demolish the ''dilapidated'' convent about a year ago.
The Catholic Diocese could not afford to restore it, and there had been no commercial interest in the building.
However, it would remain where it was for now as demolition was very expensive, Fr Lalaguna said.
One potential lifeline was a proposal to shift neighbouring St Joseph's School to Frankton. If that proceeded and the diocese decided to sell the whole site, a future buyer could decide to keep the convent.
Parishioner Carol McIntyre Crolla (78), of Queenstown, said she was a pupil at the school in the 1940s.
Although the convent had fallen into disrepair, she had fond memories of a ''lovely, well-cared-for building'' and of the Dominican Sisters who lived there.
Much later, while living in Cromwell, she used to stay at the convent two nights a week because of her work in the resort.
''It was cleaned and polished and loved, and always warm and welcoming.''
She recalled a ''cosy'' living room on the ground floor, along with a dining room, kitchen, larder and chapel, while the bedrooms were upstairs.
The sisters played a big role in the community, teaching music and speech to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
The convent had been empty since 2003, when a sister died and the remaining two moved to Arrowtown, she said.
Built as a presbytery in 1877, it was vacated by the parish priest when the first four members of the Dominican order arrived in the resort in 1883.
The last Dominican Sister left the resort last year.
