Retirement was the plan when Jane Cunliffe and John Slotemaker sold their accommodation business beside Rabbit Island - but this week they took over the oldest pub in the country.
On Monday, they became the new owners of the Moutere Inn, with a gardener beginning a revamp of the grounds the same day and renovations getting under way to return five upstairs bedrooms to 1850s-style accommodation.
The couple sold Appleby House and Rabbit Island Huts a couple of years ago with plans to build a new home on a lifestyle block in Mahana and retire.
“We went travelling, built a house and developed 10 acres - and then had nothing to do,” Jane explains. “We ran out of things to do, and I go a little bit mad if I don’t have much to do!”
Over the years they have built numerous houses but never renovated a building. When long-time owners David Watson and Andrew Cole decided to sell the pub after 17 years, regulars John and Jane mulled the idea over with family.
“We’ve been drinking here for years, and I’ve always commented on its potential. It was on the market for a time, and we hoped somebody would buy it so we wouldn’t have to think about it.
“But it kept coming up as a family chat and we thought we’d have to do something about it.”
Now the whole family is involved. Daughter Ali Slotemaker and her husband Stephen Lee, who established Albertas café in Māpua and now run a coffee roasting business in Australia, will bring their experience, while son Fox Slotemaker and his wife Mollie Grey are packing up in Australia and heading back across the Tasman to help run the pub.
“We wouldn’t have done it without family,” Jane says. “We need all their expertise and they’re all quite talented in their different fields.”
She is quick to reassure locals the renovations won’t mean major changes to the historic pub, which dates back to 1850. While several hotels around the country lay claim to being the oldest, she says the Moutere Inn is the oldest still operating in its original building.
Most of the work will be upstairs, restoring accommodation in keeping with its early days.
The business will remain open during the “quick project”, with contract chef Alistair Forster – formerly of Forsters of Moutere Hills – running the kitchen.
For now, retirement is off the table, with John and Jane throwing themselves into a renovation project and a new business.
