Having started life by evacuating her bombed family home in Cologne, Germany during World War 2, and ending it in the heart of Wānaka — which she fell in love with at first sight — Rosemarie Jones led a colourful and creative existence.
The restoration of the Cardrona Hotel in 1974 with her then husband Eddie Jones stands out as one of her biggest projects, but Mrs Jones had many talents ranging from being an accomplished chef, to a fine-tuned knitter, to co-operating the Wānaka crafts store.
At age 22 Rosemarie jumped on a ship to Australia where she lived for three years before heading to New Zealand for only six weeks in 1965, meeting her eventual husband.
Mrs Jones went on to travel the United States and Canada, but the pair kept in touch via letter writing, with Mr Jones proposing they get married, by ink.
Shortly after, they married in Mr Jones home country, England, in 1967, before moving to Canada and then back to New Zealand together. They were married 27 years. Mr Jones died just two months ago.
The Joneses adored their new home country from the beginning. They started in Auckland and made their way south.
"When they came to Wānaka, they just loved it and bought a section within three hours," daughter Sonia Jones said.
The Cardrona Hotel stands tall and proud today as one of the region’s most iconic buildings, but it was once under serious threat of demolition. The gold rush hotel, built in the 1860s, was purchased by the Joneses in 1974, and if it weren’t for them, the famous hotel would have been bulldozed.
Mr Jones died in May, but the legacy of the restoration continued to be upheld by Ms Jones, their children Sonia and Eiko Jones.
By the time the couple found the hotel, it had paid the price of neglect.
"It’s a shame to stand there and rot," Ms Jones said in June this year when recalling seeing the hotel for the first time.
"We both come from a country where houses are 1500 years, and that needed to be restored."
During the project the couple wished to keep the original name, but liquor licensing authorities kicked up a fuss and wanted to remove the rights to calling it a hotel at all.
A fighter, Mrs Jones took their troubles to television activist show, Fair Go, and the hotel proudly stands today with The Cardrona Hotel on the facade.
Sonia was only a small child when the restoration took place, but she remembered her parents as creative and inventive people.
She had vivid memories of accompanying her parents as they went treasure hunting in demolition sites for materials and later on helping her father in the restaurant.
"I was in nappies. It was amazing to grow up around all the entrepreneurs at Cardrona skifield and our parents. It was very fascinating."
One of the key elements of the restoration process was the revival of the facade. Today it is hailed as the hotel’s most recognisable feature, but during the 1970s it was falling down.
"So we preserved the facade forward, and we had all our friends come with their car and jacks to hold it," Rosemarie Jones said.
The full restoration took about 10 years, and the hotel opened again in 1983. They sold it after 14 years living and working there.
After that they moved in to Wānaka and opened up a cafe called Anatoles, named after a children’s book about a naughty family of French mice.
"They were phenomenal cooks. My mum was an amazing baker and chef. She did all the baking, the mulled wine and sourdough bread."
She then helped set up the co-operative crafts store The Artisan Atore, in Wānaka where many crafts people would sell and buy screen prints, knitware and artwork.
"Lots of people have her boutiques. She learned a bit of it when in LA when travelling. Both of our parents were good at lots of skills."
Mr and Mrs Jones eventually separated and Rosemarie went on to marry her German childhood sweetheart, Gunter Schurger, in 1997.
Both men died in the last three years, which her daughter said impacted Rosemarie’s health. Still, Mrs Jones was making her famous sourdough pancakes right up until end, at age 86.
Mrs Jones leaves behind two children, Sonia and Eiko Jones, and two grandchildren Corina and Connor.
"She was a force of creativity, and a force of nature, multi-skilled with a huge cheeky smile." — Olivia Caldwell.
