Boat mad couple build new life in former leaky old pub

Stephen and Paula Pepperell took a chance and it paid off. Photo / Greg Bowker

You are in your 40s, working like dogs. So you sell up and go sailing for nine years.

You come back, sell the trusty yacht, buy a leaking old pub and start working like dogs again.

But this new phase in the adventurous life of Paula and Stephen Pepperell has already brought rewards.

Their business, The Riverhead, 31 km northwest of Auckland, has won the NZ Hospitality Association's award for the best renovated bar/restaurant.

The couple won against 16 other operations, some of them multi-million-dollar designer-inspired projects in the country's well-heeled tourist spots.

"We have never been in this industry before and we've been on a steep learning curve," said Mrs Pepperell.

The Riverhead now employs 40 staff because of their plan to turn a rundown country pub into somewhere you would take your granny, or your baby.

The 1867 building now has a lounge bar and restaurant with a deck overlooking the upper Waitemata Harbour and a function centre.

A sports bar is a refined version of the old public bar, which a fortnight before the couple moved in was a location for the feature film Love Birds, starring comedian Rhys Darby.

The tavern was in receivership and on the market for six months before the couple bought it and launched into uncharted waters - a tourism business.

But their approach to it was the same as they used to get safely around the world in their home-built 13.7m yacht Long White Cloud.

"We did enormous research in the four months' negotiations to buy it, because we could have lost our shirts over it. But we saw the potential."

The couple sold their yacht the day they signed up to buy the pub.

"So we went from a pristine boat to a dilapidated tavern which leaked inside when it rained.

"The roof was a priority and next were the repiling, rewiring, taking out rot and fixing broken systems.

"We had no money for architects and professional consultants. So instead of writing cheques we had to think, figure it out.

"I did the colours, we painted and sanded and Stephen did the plans and built the sewerage fields.

"We got in and did the work. It was the way we do things - we do it ourselves.

"After you have built a boat you can build a pub."

Old friends helped with building, art works and marketing on a historical theme. New friends - in the pub business - became mentors.

The couple's new life, camped upstairs on a construction site with holes in the ceiling and no kitchen, was very different from their years of "bouncing" between classic yacht racing in the Caribbean and the eastern United States.

Still living upstairs, with old furniture and no kitchen, the Pepperells say they are "very hands on" and feel lucky when they can get away for a break.

But they are keen to get on with plans to increase trade and use the position at the head of the harbour by getting more patrons to come by commercial ferry and jetboat.