A country life for Wakatu Lodge

At 128 years old, Wakatu Lodge has moved to the country with her owners Melissa and Simon Floyd and is currently split into several parts on a muddy building platform, waiting to be put back together.

Until recently, the historic two-storied villa stood above Waimea Rd in Nelson. Then the Floyds decided they were shifting to a few paddocks in the Moutere and were taking their home with them.

They had spent 11 years restoring their home and were not yet finished. So, they cut it up and put it on trucks which they hauled through the mud to its new site.

When Wakatu Lodge was first built in Nelson it was surrounded by countryside, and now it will be again, facing Mt Arthur where the Floyds can sit on her veranda and watch the sun go down behind the mountain peaks.

“We 100 per cent wanted to take the house,” Melissa says.

“We wanted to see the house finished and this was the only way to see that happen.”

The Floyds bought the rambling villa 11 years ago from what was the Nelson Hospital Board which had owned it since the 1950s and used it as a home for the aged and a rehabilitation centre.

By the time the Floyds bought the house, it had been divided into seven offices upstairs and was in a sad state.

Melissa admits it feels like they have taken a step back to when they first bought the house as she looks at the pieces sitting in the paddock, waiting to be put back together.

Back then, they moved into a house she describes as a “disaster”.

With three small children, there was no hot water and no heating in the middle of winter.

She remembers it was freezing.

Now, it is covered with tarpaulins which were not quite a match for the rain that battered the house after the roof was removed to get the top level low enough to truck on the road.

But inside, albeit a bit moist, there is still the vintage wallpapers and pressed tin on the massively-high ceilings that they have added to some of the rooms over the years.

More carpet, wallpaper and even chandeliers they bought from Czechoslovakia seven years ago, will finally come out of their wrappers and boxes to finish the restoration.

She says they had faith in the professionals to move the house, though the weather was not kind and they had to hire a couple of diggers to haul the house-laden trucks up the paddock.

The next step is getting the roof back on, piles underneath and putting the house back together.

Once the house is mended, the Floyds will carry on with the restoration process themselves.

“It’s going to keep us busy. Simon will do the wood and I’ll be doing the decorating. We work well together – there’s not many people who would find another mad person to do this with.

“People say to me ‘where are you going to start?’ And I say, ‘the beginning’.”

Melissa estimates it will be about a year before they can live in the house again.

In the meantime, they have a converted packing shed that makes a comfortable home while they are piecing Wakatu Lodge back together.