Bronwyn Sell visits a living museum built to be shared
Behind a row of ponga trees along a Rotorua street a tiny carved wharenui shelters an impressive legacy of hospitality.
The Von Trapp family once sang at the piano in the corner, a young Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited in 1954 and Eleanor Roosevelt and Gracie Fields also slipped off their shoes and walked inside.
Enclosed in its totara walls is a wealth of taonga (treasures) that would incite a museum's envy - elaborately carved furniture, antique baseballs and cricket balls, boomerangs, ebony elephants and Japanese dolls, woven kiwi feather cloaks and carved taiaha (spears).
The wharenui was built in 1926 by renowned carver Tene Waitere so his daughter, Rangi Dennan, the famous guide, could share her culture with the visitors she led through Whakarewarewa's geothermal attractions.
It was named Hinemihi, after a wharenui that sheltered Mr Waitere and his wife and young daughter (Rangi's mother) from the 1886 Mt Tarawera eruption.
Guide Rangi died nearly 30 years ago. Today her photograph watches her family carry on her legacy of sharing their culture.
Since the death in 1997 of Guide Rangi's niece, prominent weaver Emily Schuster, her husband, the Rev Bob Schuster, has cared for the building on behalf of their many descendants.
Mr Schuster says Guide Rangi's hospitality was well known. "If there was a drunk sitting on the side of the road she would pick him up and bring him in."
One of the couple's sons, Jim Schuster, who remembers hiding in the gardens as a child to get a glimpse of visiting English pin-up girl Sabrina, says the family still welcome many visitors.
"Guide Rangi was always willing to share her culture and knowledge with people."
The family's commitment to promoting understanding is borne out by drawers and cupboards full of old photographs and yellowing visitors books, recording the many thousands of people who have walked through the wharenui's carved doors in 73 years.
Carved residence a proud legacy
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