While others might agonise over 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, Thorsten Ganther’s latest puzzle has had somewhat higher stakes.
He is one of the team from Nelson Builders which has disassembled and reassembled Broadgreen Historic House’s glasshouse during its $209,000 restoration.
“It’s different to the modern construction. We had to label every piece and then just make sure that it goes all back the same way again,” Thorsten says.
The restoration project is the first of its kind undertaken by Nelson City Council, and experienced heritage contractors were engaged to guide the work.
Thorsten has done similar work in Germany on old timber buildings which were constructed in similar ways; however, the glasshouse was still “quite unique” to work on.
“They, back then, just put river rocks onto the clay, and then build the whole house on it, and it’s still standing here… it’s quite a different approach”.
The foundation underneath the glasshouse has now been replaced with a “massive amount” of concrete to stabilise it, after it had been sinking.
A couple of windows also had to be replaced as they were “too far gone”, however they were able to retain most of the rest of the structure as the native wood was holding up “so well”.
“Which was a big win for the restoration… because you want to try to keep as much of the original fabric as you can,” Thorsten says.
“You can’t even get these sizes of timbers anymore, even from the tropical wood we had to use.”
Restoration work began in early 2025 and is now nearing completion, due to be finished before the end of the financial year.
Its $209,000 budget saw $100,000 provided by the Lottery Grants Board, with the council funding the remaining cost.
The glasshouse was closed after a February 2023 site visit identified an issue in the external brick wall, raising safety risks.
