The owners of one of the oldest homes in a Central Otago town have come out the other side after being nearly broken by the ambitious renovation of a rundown 1880s stone house into the modern-day family home it is today.
The historic home, named Hexton, is one of just two remaining two-storey stone homes in the small town of Roxburgh, in Central Otago, and was in a near-derelict state when Robin Berthault and her husband Jimmy Wilson purchased it eight years ago.
Berthault had been looking for a larger property for their growing family that they could also run their excavation business from and eventually went to look at the lifestyle property on the insistence of a friend. The property had been languishing on the market for some time before she finally agreed to view it.
The house at 4134 Roxburgh-Ettrick Road, in Roxburgh, was damp and mouldy, pinex tiles had been stapled to the ceiling and the cornices were all yellow with age. It had been owned by a photographer and the workshop had been used as a dark room and for framing.
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But despite the mother-of-two’s reservations about the state of the property and the cost involved, she fell in love with the old home and told her husband they needed to make an offer.
“I really loved the story of the house. It just had a really deep history of the valley being probably one of the original homes that was built here and frequented by people all the time and was somewhere people stopped and got provisions.
“I came through and thought this is actually really cool. I came upstairs and the light was coming through the big bay windows, and I could see the good potential here. I saw the sheds and I was like this is what we really need for the business.”
The couple took over the property in August 2015 and planned to make the house warm and dry within a few months so they could then move in with their sons who were aged two and six.
The Van Gough wallpaper in the kitchen is one of the many luxurious touches in the home. Photo / Supplied
However, they hugely underestimated how much work was needed and ended up replacing the floors and roof and adding gutters and rewiring the home before moving in. The heating system and insulation were upgraded.
“We kind of went ‘we will just be in by Christmas - it won’t be a big deal’ and a year later we moved in.”
They then tried to find time in between running a business and raising a young family to renovate the rest of the home.
“It also kind of broke us a bit. We would just get exhausted and burnt out and we would be like we just need to stop for a bit because it’s taking over our lives. Every weekend we would be doing stuff and would be like we just need to enjoy our lives a little bit.”
The first major setback happened a year after they moved in when Berthault fell off a ladder while removing layers of wallpaper from the high six-metre stairwell and broke her leg.
The renovation was put on hold for about a year with the couple working best when they had self-imposed deadlines to finish parts of the property.
The 1880s glasshouse was renovated so the couple could get married in it. Photo / Supplied
The next deadline came when Wilson popped the question to Berthault on her 40th birthday and the couple decided to turn the historic glasshouse into an impressive pergola to hold their wedding.
Shortly after, the country went into lockdown and Berthault was diagnosed with breast cancer. The project was put on the back burner again while she embarked on three years of treatment including six rounds of chemotherapy, a month of radiotherapy and several surgeries.
“Time just passes by so quickly and of course the house wasn’t the priority, it was more just trying to stay alive at that stage. I’ve recovered from that and it’s probably only in the last six months that I’ve had the energy and the capability to start working again on the house.”
The family decided earlier this year to move closer to Dunedin for their children’s schooling and that gave them their final deadline to work so they could sell the property.
Professional painters were bought in to paint the exterior of the house and a new roof was put on the shed, marking the end of their very long, arduous labour of love.
Berthault said she’s extremely proud of the work they put into restoring the house and especially how they kept true to its heritage by exposing the stone walls.
“My staircase is the part I’m most proud of because we did all of it. I broke my leg on that staircase, but I still went back and put wallpaper in and painted it. It’s beautiful. It’s probably the one thing I feel super proud of when I walk up my stairs.”
She also took her time choosing the perfect pieces for the home including the Van Gough-licensed almond blossom wallpaper in the kitchen and hallway.
“It’s a beautiful textured wallpaper that I just had to have and base everything else around it to some degree.”
The exposed stone wall is a unique and striking feature in the home. Photo / Supplied
Berthault also admitted to building the kitchen around the sink and oven, only replacing the temporary plywood benchtop in kitchen in 2020 when she eventually found one to suit.
“Some of it was a practical need that we would put stuff in and other times I just hadn’t found what would look good. So, you just live with something until you find something that’s right.”
Harcourts listing agent Brigitte Paterson, who also sold the property to the family in 2015, said it had been sensitively restored with “little touches of luxury” such as the wallpaper, woollen carpet, clawfoot bath and heritage fittings.
“They’ve done it from the ground up. There’s not one piece they haven’t touched or improved,” she said.
“Honestly the house is just like a hug. There’s something about the atmosphere of those stone houses, I don’t know if it’s because the walls are so thick but it just exudes this awesome, awesome feel.”
The first open homes at the weekend attracted 26 groups through, she said, adding, “there wasn’t one of them that didn’t feel the wow factor.”
A studio and shedding offers plenty of potential for a new owner to run a business from it. Photo / Supplied
Stone houses were unique to the South Island, she said, and it was only one of two larger two-storey stone properties in the Teviot Valley.
“North Islanders like our stone buildings because they never built with stone in the North Island. So, it’s kind of a South Island heritage construction method that Aucklanders don’t see so they love it.”
Paterson said the property would suit a range of buyers including someone in the arts who wanted a studio or to run a gallery from the site, a café or wedding venue operator, or even someone with a few horses looking for a lifestyle property.
The property is being sold by deadline treaty closing on November 16, with Paterson adding the only price indication at this stage was that it would likely have a one in front of it.
