It has been eight long weeks sitting in its sawn-through parts in a muddy paddock, but the 128-year-old Wakatu Lodge has been put back together like a jigsaw puzzle on its new site.
Melissa and Simon Floyd say it has been a long wait to get their two-storied villa pieced back together since they carted it from its Waimea Road site in Nelson to their lifestyle block in the Moutere.
The plan had been to piece it back together immediately, but then it rained, the site turned to mud and Melissa says it was impossible for the crew to get the piles into the ground, so everything was put on hold while the ground dried out.
Then last week the moving crew were back, lifting the base of the house to get a small digger underneath to dig holes for the piles and pour in the concrete the night before lifting the two sawn-through sections back on top to make the house whole again.
“It’s absolute relief,” Melissa said as the crane lifted sections back where they belonged. “I’m not nervous at all – just excited.”
The Floyds have shifted two small cottages in the past so know the process, but the sheer size of Wakatu Lodge posed new challenges. Even after splitting the two storeys, the roof still had to be lowered to meet height restrictions on the road, and then had to be lifted again, before being lifted back onto the bottom storey.
“The house was slightly larger and more complicated, but we knew it was possible. It was on our radar that anything is possible.”
Eleven years ago the Floyds bought the villa from the then Nelson Hospital Board which had used it as a home for the aged and a rehabilitation centre. They have spent those years renovating it, before deciding to move it to the country.
Some of their renovation work is a little worse for wear after rain found its way inside during the time it sat in pieces in the paddock. But Melissa already has plans to rectify the vintage wallpaper that they sourced from the United Kingdom.
“My husband always accuses me of buying the wallpaper before the walls are built. I’m always way ahead.”
Realistically, she says it will be a year before the house will be liveable and renovations will be ongoing. Though the house is still ragged, she already has plans for the landscaping, with a cast-iron gazebo waiting on the sidelines.
The house now has a Facebook page so those interested in the lodge can follow its renovation progress.
“It will have a modern twist on an old house.”
