Naomi McCleary with Sir Bob Harvey at the Shadbolt House, south Titirangi. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Bought by the public purse with the aim of creating a writer's retreat, a West Auckland house stands in disrepair. Anne Gibson looks into efforts to restore the vision.
Naomi McCleary stands at the front door to writer Maurice Shadbolt's 1930s south Titirangi bungalow, the place where he produced most of his work.
The former chairperson of Going West Festival Trust recalls a fond memory of how a grapevine trailed around the veranda when she visited him in the early 90s.
"It came from the front deck, around here," she says, indicating wide eaves where the greenery was once looped "and he'd be sitting in his cane chair right here, smoking his pipe".
A wistful look, as she remembers him at the literary festival (New Zealand's oldest), then in the early stages of illness, unable to recall people's identities.
We are at 35 Arapito Rd, below the village, overlooking the bay. It's a down-on-its-luck weatherboard home, almost the same deep red of the Colin McCahon house, not too far away.
West Auckland is famous for its writers and artists and their contribution to our national heritage.
From Shadbolt's empty rundown lounge, which leads to a deck now unsafe to walk on, ex-Waitākere mayor Sir Bob Harvey recalls his grief at seeing the writer, his dear friend, in a coffin: "The last time I was here, Maurice was in a box. He'd died the day before. I came here to farewell him. I consider him one of the great writers of this country, this nation."
A heat pump is jammed on the top shelf of the wall-fixed bookshelf: shelf gone, the electrical device cuckoo-like. Gone is the corner potbelly, unsafe under council ownership, Harvey recalls.
"But we could buy another one and install it," McCleary chips in. "Plus move the heat pump and restore the top shelf."
Harvey, who launched the Going West festival with McCleary in 1996, loves how Shadbolt wanted to escape the "hell" of Ponsonby and Auckland "to be free, to get my soul somewhere where I can feel my writing, my spirit, my role in life", to the west and its calming bush.
The Shadbolt house desperately needs restoring and McCleary and Harvey are passionate advocates.
A conservation plan for restoration cites the home's significance. Burgess + Treep Architects (as the firm was known at the time) wrote: "The house at Arapito Rd is referred to by Shadbolt in his writing. He considered this intimate part of Titirangi to have special qualities, a connection to the sea and the bush. Shadbolt and his family lived on this property from 1964 until 2004. Shadbolt worked from home and this was the place where, in various rooms and places, he wrote his work during the greater part of his career."
In 2006, the Herald reported how his home was bought by Waitākere City Council in 2004 for a writers' residency programme. The now-disestablished council paid $550,000 for the house.
It's nearly two decades since the two-level home overlooking the bay went into public ownership to become a retreat, but no writer has put pen to paper inside, on the deck, in the bush, nor in the garden studio where Shadbolt wrote. The home is occupied by Shadbolt's memory. A writers' residence with no writer is like a pub with no beer.
The peaceful residence surrounded by nīkau, kauri and kawakawa on its steep site off the road has been sporadically tenanted. It's empty now, has been broken into and needs substantial repairs.
Harvey is fuming. "It's unbelievable that it's taken this long," he says.
He blames bureaucracy, which he says is so inept it failed to execute the vision. His council partly succeeded when it bought the property but in 2010 the Waitākere City Council was subsumed by the new Auckland Council.
McCleary remains hopeful that repair and upgrade work will begin soon and writers will be living there in about two years' time. That would make it 20 years from purchase to a writer arriving.
Legal title issues have been resolved — McCleary once feared the council's property arm, Eke Panuku, would sell the place as it was identified as an asset for disposal. She is delighted it's now back under Auckland Council ownership and that Going West Trust has will run the programme and manage repair works to make it ready for writers.
"The Waitākere Ranges Local Board was due last week to discuss the house. The proposal now is for the council to keep the land but for the Going West Trust to own the house and run the writers' programme there," McCleary says.
Resource and building consents will soon be sought for a two-stage plan to first repair foundations and retain ground, then install new kitchen and bathroom facilities. Already, quotes are being sought for foundation work, she says.
Extensive research has gone into planning, including commissioning a heritage architectural assessment and conservation plan to respect the home's place in its landscape and our history.
Sandra Coney, a local board member, says the property was previously identified by the council for potential disposal, "so it's been quite a battle to pull that back". She also acknowledges extensive work is needed to make the house habitable.
Once "sign-off" has been given for the trust, it will be charged with raising the money for the repairs, Coney says.
In the four decades Shadbolt and his family lived in the house, he produced works including Strangers and Journeys, The Lovelock Version and Season of the Jew. One novel, Touch of Clay, was set in Titirangi.
In total he produced 11 novels, four collections of short stories, a volume of journalism, plays, a war history and two autobiographical works.
He died in 2004 in Taumarunui, aged 72, after a lengthy illness due to an Alzheimer's-related disease.
The 1518sq m property, with a 160sq m house, is valued at $1.4m today, up from $870,000 in 2017. Annual rates are expected to be $3224 but are now $2501/year.
McCleary says she expects the trust will pay the rates bill and manage the upgrade so it meets healthy homes standards on heating, insulation and kitchen and bathroom extraction.
"If I had to take a guess, I'd say by 2024 there will be a writer living here."
Demand for bonds may well stay strong, but there's a catch.