Temuka’s Historic 1870 Courthouse Sells for $365,000

The historic five-bedroom Temuka home, filled with vintage crown molding and hand-painted stained glass, which went on sale in February, has sold for $15,000 above its $350,000 asking price.

Built in the 1870s as the local courthouse and jail, the building was moved to its current location in 1900 and turned into a private residence. It was bought in the late 1960s by the Pollards, a local family and was used as a family home until it was put on the market in February after matriarch Daphne Pollard died.

As a child, Daphne walked by the big old house and never thought she would live there. The property had the same effect on its new owners, Christchurch residents Julian Thomas and Debbie Rae.

“Every time we went through town, I said, ‘Where is my house?’ because it was my dream house,” says Rae.

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Both Thomas, who is a glazier by trade and runs a rental home maintenance company, and Rae had admired the house every time they passed through town. When they saw a “for sale” sign outside, they stopped to look through the windows at the empty house. Seeing the ornate decoration inside, they were determined to own the house.

In 1900, the building was converted into a seven-room house by local widow and proto-Reno fan Elizabeth Arbuthnot-Jones. She died just two years later, in an accidental drowning on the Te Ngawai River, and the house was sold by her executors. An advertisement for the sale appeared in Temuka Leader in 1902.

It was bought by Alice Bates, whose husband Charles was a painter and decorator. It is thought that he was responsible for the ornate ceilings and cornices throughout the front part of the house, as well as that the couple used the property as a showcase for their decorating business.

The roof space above Bate’s beautiful moldings hides the last vestiges of the house’s courthouse origins: lacquered tongue-and-groove plates that follow the slope of the roof, and traditional black steel support rods, “kind of like a church interior,” spokesperson for the Pollard family, Chris Pollard told Stuff in February.

In the room the Pollards used as a living room, landscape vignettes dot the moldings. They were painted by local artist Theo H Goy, a member of the Otago Art Society, who often exhibited his work at Bates’s shop in town.

Thomas and Rae, both lovers of vintage homes who say modern homes “give kills”, knew they had found their dream home.

The couple own a piece of land on the west coast and planned to move a 1930s building Rae owns in Hokitika onto it as their “semi-retirement home.”

“I had inquired about doing that, and it all looked good, we trudged along,” says Thomas, who runs a rental company in Christchurch.

“Then she sees this house and says, ‘I love it more than my own house.’ So we put her on the market.”

Unfortunately, the Hokitika house was not sold in time for the Temuka sale.

“We got a bit desperate, the old days were running out.”

Undeterred, Thomas put on the market a small commercial property he owned in Christchurch, and it sold in about a week and a half. They were able to put together a $365,000 offer, which the Pollards accepted.

More than 120 years after the house was first moved to where it stands today – no less by a traction motor – it will be moved again. This time a seven-hour drive to Westport, via the Lewis Pass, “in a few years”, to the piece of land Thomas and Rae own there.

The couple plans to renovate it to its 1902 glory.

“We’re sticking to the theme. It’s a vintage house, so we want to stick with that. We love that vintage country look, so we’re not going to ruin that by modernizing it,” says Rae.

Although it is “a bit of a shame” that the house will be leaving Temuka, “because of the history of the house and where it stands today. It is a real icon in Temuka,” says Thomas. The couple’s plans give the building a fifth life.

“But we will fix it as much as possible [on the new site]† And when the time comes, we’ll work with the movers to make sure we can do it with as little damage as possible.”

They have elaborate plans for the house, including making the most of the period details, but that’s all a few more years out.

In the meantime, when the keys are handed over next week, Thomas and Rae plan to “spend a few nights there, on a mattress on the floor” to soak up the atmosphere, and “figure out what to go first. do and how we are going to do it”.

Then they’re going to give the house a facelift and a fresh coat of paint to protect the woodwork, and probably rent it out for a few years until they read before the big move.

“We have the gardens and trees – it’s a beautiful property, on a little hill, and there are sheep, it’s rural,” says Thomas. “The house will look beautiful because when you drive up the road you will see the house sitting on the land.”