One night in 2009, the phone rang in the office of Wanaka architect Sarah Scott. The caller said she ''wanted to build a castle''.
Four years later, on an island in an irrigation pond in North Otago, 20,000 concrete blocks have been laid and 540cu m of concrete poured and there are still turrets, battlements, secret passageways, a drawbridge and portcullis to complete.
Ms Scott is the architect in charge of delivering the three-storey, 1200sq m dream of Oamaru identity Dot Smith.
She was chosen, she thinks, on the recommendation of builder Don Colling.
''I was probably the craziest architect Don could think of that he had worked with. I owe him a great debt of gratitude because this job has become part of my life.''
As the castle becomes ever more obvious on the landscape north of Oamaru, Ms Scott told the Otago Daily Times about how the design developed.
After the ''out-of-the-blue'' phone call, Mrs Smith presented Ms Scott with a foolscap box of ideas including hundreds of magazine pages showing castle interiors, exteriors and gardens.
''When I started going through the box, I realised that the dates on the ripped-out pages from the magazines went back 30 years.
''So that's where we started.''
Ms Scott and assistant Jen Nelson, who grew up in the grounds of a castle, set about researching the elements that might go into a new castle - taking a close look at those in European as well as the British ''classics'' such as Warwick and Leeds castles.
The original idea for Mrs Smith's castle was to build quite a small building next to a restored farmhouse on a Pukeuri property owned by Mrs Smith and her husband Neil.
''It was very much a house at that stage, linked to the existing house.''
But that all changed when the Smiths decided it would be better to site the castle on the property where they had lived for 35 years, where Mrs Smith had her Riverstone Country gift shop and the couple's son Bevan and daughter-in-law Monique operate the Riverstone Kitchen restaurant.
''Dot realised she had to enhance the vision a bit more; that it wasn't just her little house that she wanted to live in - a mini-castle or whatever.
''She had to make sure whatever we were building was actually going to carry through into the future.''
The change in location and design also changed the planning process, turning a ''totally straightforward resource consent application'' into a much more complex, two-year-long consent process.
The building consent took a further six or seven months.
But as a result of the changes, the castle would now be able to operate as a homestay and function centre. The main floor would have a ''grand hall'' for balls and banquets, a formal living room, a family living room, a dining room that opened into a conservatory that opened into an enclosed outdoor dining area, a billiard room, a table tennis room, kitchen, scullery and private quarters. The second floor would have bedrooms and guest facilities.
''And on the west and east sides, there are these just enormous ramparted terraces.''
Each bedroom had a turret with the ''appropriate arrow-slit windows'' and around the top of the building would be ''fully castellated battlements''.
There was also a large basement referred to as the ''dungeon''.
The original building had plans for 20m of tunnels but the completed castle would have twice that.
''Smithy [Neil] can now come in from the lake, get out of his kayak, go straight into the tunnel and into the house.''
The exterior walls were 450mm thick with an Oamaru stone ''bolstered'' veneer covering the masonry, and the internal walls were masonry.
Ms Scott described the castle as a ''huge masonry build'' capably handled by local contractors.
She marvelled at Mrs Smith's patience.
''Four years on, and we are only just getting into the second floor.''
