Gord and Sandy Stewart have owned a number of character houses, but they say the villa they bought near Matamata nearly a decade ago "really takes the cake".
They were looking to move up the coast from Tauranga but came over to Matamata one weekend and saw historic Quinlan House in a real estate agent's window. The elegant old villa on its lovely property looked like the perfect opportunity to slow down and live more lightly on the land.
The house was built for Patrick Quinlan, who won a ballot for the land in 1907, and became home to he and his wife, five sons and three daughters.
Sitting behind timber gates at the end of a driveway that curves through an English-style wood, the house sits on 1.7ha of lawns and native plantings, with views out to the Kaimai Ranges.
It's a beautifully proportioned weatherboard and corrugated iron villa with polished timber floors throughout, and french doors opening from most rooms to the wraparound verandas.
There are three bedrooms and two bathrooms, a large country kitchen with modern appliances, an adjoining family room with a log burner, and a formal lounge and dining area with an open fire.
366 Taihoa South Road, Matamata. Photo / Supplied
When Gord and Sandy first saw the house it was owned by a descendent of the Quinlan family who had just completed a major renovation sympathetic to the era, adding on the big kitchen and family room.
That's their favourite space, Sandy describing it in Mary Poppins' words as "practically perfect in every way". Gord agrees, although the seat in front of the fireplace in the formal lounge is a close runner-up.
The only interior work the house needed was painting and new drapes, and Gord and Sandy consulted with an interior designer to select the right paint colours for the era, choosing Porter Paints to get the look they wanted. They furnished it with pieces they had brought with them from Canada.
"It was as if all our furniture had been looking for this house," Gord says.
Then they turned their attention to the outside, putting in a new driveway, planting native trees and shrubs and working towards a pretty, low-maintenance garden. An environmental sustainability consultant, one of Gord's early tasks on the land was to create a vegetable garden, following directions from the book Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture.
366 Taihoa South Road, Matamata. Photo / Supplied
It's circular, with paths edged in bricks salvaged from an earlier renovation of the house, and bordered by some little lemonwoods Gord found in the bush and replanted. The soil is excellent on this lifestyle block, and it shows in the quantity and variety of food the garden produces.
Another project was converting the separate 100-year-old kauri cottage for accommodation.
"The cottage was originally the wash-house for railway workers in the town, but we decided to fix it up as a sleepout for when the kids came home with their friends."
They added an ensuite and decorated the cottage in the same style as the house and have now been hosting guests for four years. It's a good location for visitors with Matamata five minutes away and the local tourist attraction, the Hobbiton Movie Set, about 12 minutes' drive.
With a flock of 10 sheep grazing the small paddocks on the property, Gord laughingly describes himself and Sandy as "major agricultural contractors" and has to be gently reminded that he is a lifestyler, not a farmer.
