Greg explains. "All the bars have gone from the windows now but it was very high security as they stored millions of pounds worth of gold here at any one time."
The refinery stopped distilling impurities from precious metals when gold supplies dwindled and the building's subsequent occupants have included a lingerie factory and a demolition timber store.
The Waites' considerable renovations include merging two smaller dwellings to form the main home and insulating, reroofing and rewiring.
A fence of some 1200 ponga surrounding the property is reminiscent of a pa. Two sets of wooden double gates make off-street parking very secure.
Past the shop's entrance you'll find the portico entrance to their home. Off the match-lined hallway is the timber-floored main bedroom and first bathroom with restored clawfoot bath. The 5m-stud lounge is kept toastily warm in winter by an efficient fireplace register set in a kauri surround. The welcoming brown-polished concrete floors continue into the kitchen, where the couple had a working coal range installed in the refurbished brick chimney.
A stainless steel stove, dishwasher and fridge accompany thick kauri benches and timber cabinetry incorporating glass-fronted compartments from Smith & Caughey's former haberdashery department.
Greg describes a large neighbouring room (with a second bathroom and laundry off one side) as their "formal dining room-cum extra bedroom-cum office". Living flows out to a deck and their outdoor entertaining area. There's a door from the kitchen into the gallery and a mezzanine bedroom above it is reached easily from the main home and treated as part of it.
Greg says their home functions brilliantly for the frequent entertaining they do, with museum staff and antique dealers visiting from all over the globe. Visitors invariably are "blown away" by all that the property offers.
The large ferro-cement gallery-shop dripping with ivy houses their Antiques on Main business (named for a former location). It's a striking space with a cathedral-like ceiling lined in rimu and accented by chunky ceiling beams. A portion fronted by the big, original delivery doors is partitioned off as Katy's studio.
Greg crafts fine furniture in the corrugated iron workshop. There's also a lined corrugated iron shed which could be integrated into the compact one-bedroom flat or otherwise developed.
"If we were in Mt Eden we'd be selling this for millions of dollars," Greg adds with a grin.
The couple are ardent fans of Paeroa and plan to keep a New Zealand base there after they shift focus from this historic property to a burgeoning overseas business.
They now spend a lot of time in Bali where they've moved and faithfully restored a Javanese villa; it's now christened Villa Aroha and available to rent.
