Historic Oruawharo Homestead changes hands, sight unseen, during lockdown

Historic Oruawharo Homestead in Takapau, where the new owners have plans to sustain the property well into the future.

The newest owners of Oruawharo Homestead bought it sight unseen during a pandemic.

Rob and Dr Erica Lauder, William Lauder and Bianca du Toit were locked down in Auckland when they saw the property for sale online.

It was the second time they’d seen it. The first time, Rob had jokingly forwarded the real estate ad to his son William, asking him “isn’t this your dream?”

Bianca replied with “have you bought it yet?” which inspired Rob to make inquiries, but finding it was already under offer, he thought no more of it.

Then it popped up again.

The family were in Covid lockdown in Auckland but the rest of the country was free to roam. Rob contacted a friend from the Wairarapa who travelled to Takapau for a look at Oruawharo Homestead.

The friend reported back “It’s great, it’s you - but you’re nuts.”

So they bought it.

“We knew what we were in for,” says William. “We had no illusions that it was going to be easy, but between us we have the skills we need to nurture the house - and the business.”

Rob and Dr Erica Lauder, co-owners who purchased the property sight unseen... and love it.

Oruawharo Homestead is a Grade 1 listed historic property built in 1879 for Sydney Johnston and his bride Sophia Lambert, as the heart of an 11,000-hectare station. The house stayed in the family until it was purchased in 2000 by the Harrises, who saved it from demolition and gave it a new life.

Takapau’s St Vincent’s Catholic Church itself was constructed in 1890 with the help of Sydney and Sophia Johnston. St Vincent’s was deconsecrated, picked up and moved to Oruawharo Homestead in 2012, where it became the central part of Oruawharo Homestead’s hospitality business.

Chef William Lauder with Bianca, co-owners and the creative force behind St Vincent's.

Last May, William, Bianca, Rob and Erica stepped in as the new property and business owners.

William is a builder. He’s also a chef who has travelled the world, cooking and learning in Australia, London, France, Spain, Morocco, Africa, Moscow.

His passion for cooking began at age 12 when he started an after-school job working in a charcuterie. He stayed there until he left school at 16 to take up an apprenticeship at the French Cafe in Auckland under chef Simon Wright.

“He taught me passion for food. He never used a recipe and everything he touched turned out great. He was winning the gamut of NZ awards and I was right there at the right time to learn alongside awesome people.

“This put me in the orbit of chefs we now see on TV, and showed me where food can really go. I wanted to be versatile so did catering, temp cheffing, ran a bistro, saw how food TV was made. I was meeting people from all over the world, it was never boring, it keeps hooking you in.

“Like every chef I wanted to travel so I did the usual Europe OE, but all about food. I worked head cheffing in London, worked in Spain, Italy, the south of France. I feel I gained a lot of versatility.”

Along the way, William held out hope he would meet someone who would share his passion for hospitality, someone he could share his life and, eventually, his own restaurant with.

On moving back to New Zealand he realised the hospitality lifestyle is not conducive to having a stable life. “It’s just work, sleep, work.”

St Vincent's looks right at home among the trees and gardens of Oruawharo Homestead.

So, being versatile, he took on a building apprenticeship. And met Bianca.

But up on a shelf at home, William still had diaries from his overseas travels, and in one of them, circa 2009, there were pages and pages of plans and drawings he’d made, for one day when he would buy and relocate an old church, restore it and turn it into a restaurant.

Hence Rob’s question to his son...”Is this your dream?”

And hence the purchase and the move, despite the fact that William and Bianca had never even set foot in Hawke’s Bay.

Rob and Erica - a GP and obstetrician - were the first to actually see the property, with Erica phoning William to say, ”it’s bigger than I thought.” For now she remains in Auckland to work, but comes to Takapau a couple of times a month, bearing her own hand-made quilts for the homestead beds and decorating the immense house.

She will be making the move to Takapau in the future.

William says, “My brother has moved to Napier and when we said we weren’t likely to stay in Auckland either, Erica said to Rob ‘all our children are leaving... find us something small near them!’

“Our parents have done so much for us, we hope a move here onto a beautiful property in a wonderful community will go some way towards thanking them.”

After a career in IT, Rob has been doing property maintenance and painting and is now Oruawharo’s guru - his skills are very much at home at Oruawharo leading the charge to paint the homestead. He also gets enthusiastically into the large garden, a feature of summer events at the homestead.

“What needs doing here needs doing over a period of years. If we had to pay someone it would be very scary. With 40 acres we’re under no illusion that we’ll ever be done,” admits William.

Bianca is a graphics, design and marketing whizz, and when not working on the website, advertising and social media, she’s running her nail salon - Phenomenail - from the Oruawharo Homestead, allowing clients a sneak peek inside the house while turning their nails into works of art. “I’ve always wanted to do it and now I have the space, it’s perfect.”

William says Bianca has also picked up the hospitality business incredibly fast. “From having no hospitality experience whatsoever, it’s incredible what she’s achieving here.”

St Vincent's Catholic Church was transported from Takapau and deconsecrated, before gaining new life as a restaurant and events venue.

So things were looking promising ... the new owners were expanding from primarily a wedding venue to offer anniversary celebrations, memorial functions, bistro nights, baby showers, brunches with pastries made on site by William.

In fact they had a 100-person brunch booked for Valentine’s Day this year.

Then they were struck by a cyclone.

“We had five functions booked that had to be cancelled. We chose to cancel and refund rather than postpone, as there was no way of telling what hardship people were going to come up against during that time. It was a massive knockback, maybe 15 per cent of our yearly turnover.

“We had trees down. We’d just got the parking area ready and two trees fell on it. Neighbours and clients started to turn up asking us what they could do to help, ‘do you want us to bring tractors?’ With their generous help we were able to get back into shape before the next wedding bookings.”

But in the days following Cyclone Gabrielle, the couple had other priorities.

“We are both search and rescue volunteers, so we headed north to help out. We felt very humbled being offered help ourselves, with the knowledge of what was going on in the wider Hawke’s Bay area.”

The cyclone was a huge blow to the business, but William says, “If we’d had the ideal first year, we might have had a false sense of security. As it is, I don’t anticipate it getting any worse ... and if it did we’d shrug it off and keep going.

“If we can survive a first year like that and still be going in the right direction, it should only get easier.”

The right direction, for the two couples, is to take full advantage of Oruawharo’s versatility ... the gardens with space and shade - an ideal summer venue, live music from non-ticketed to bigger events, good, affordable food sourced locally and teamed with local wines.

“We will grow as much as possible here. The more we can relate our hospitality to our geography, the more relevant it will be. We are on board with Junction and Ash Ridge wineries already and have explored amazing local goat’s cheeses and smoked salmon, we’ve tossed out our syrup bottles in favour of Kintail Honey... We want to champion Hawke’s Bay.”

Bianca says while they are keeping prices on par with other local establishments, William is “incapable of doing simple meals” so customers should always expect something special.

One “something special” coming up is Friday Confessions at St Vincent’s; an a la carte menu and cash bar from 5pm until late, starting on July 7. Then there’s a winter high tea - pastries made fresh by William - that runs monthly, and Bistro Nights on July 27-30.

The new owners want the hospitality venture to play a part in preserving the historic property.

“We love the fact that St Vincent’s wasn’t trucked off somewhere - it’s here, as a brilliant venue, helping look after Oruawharo Homestead. We absolutely love the church. We see ourselves as custodians of this wonderful place and we want to create something that will help to sustain the whole property, forever.”