The 133-year-old bluestone mansion housed Sisters of Mercy for more than 40 years, but this week, its sole remaining resident, Sister Chanel Hardiman, moved out.
Sr Chanel was one of the 17 nuns who moved into Marinoto in 1969 to staff the new hospital built in the grounds. For about the last 15 years she has lived alone in a two-room flat on the first floor with occasional visitors for company.
Hospital staff had expected her to stay until she died and were stunned when she informed them she was moving to a cottage at the order's South Dunedin retirement complex, hospital mission director Janice McDrury said yesterday.
Sr Chanel (78) said she had many happy memories of Marinoto and was sad to leave, but now was the right time.
"I'm getting near retirement and I thought it would be good to make the move while I was in good health."
She well remembers the move from the All Hallows convent in Royal Tce to Marinoto.
While All Hallows was a large house accommodating nuns on the first floor and nursing staff on the ground floor, Marinoto was "very grand", she said.
"It was superb. The hospital board had owned it before us and had subdivided large rooms into bedrooms and added many bathrooms. We got to choose our own bedrooms - the senior sisters first and so on, down the line in order of seniority."
She also remembers the date.
"It was the 16th of November, 1969 and we started work on December 6th. Mr Stanley Wilson, a famous surgeon in Dunedin, carried out the first operation that morning."
Sr Chanel nursed at Mercy until 1990 and was also involved with hospital administration and the establishment of the Marinoto Clinic.
Since 1990, she has been responsible for the pastoral care of patients, staff and their families. She plans to continue this work three days a week until she retires at the end of this year.
In 2008, the Mercy Hospital Board announced plans to restore Marinoto over several years and furnish it in Victorian style.
Board chairman Trevor Scott said this week the project, estimated to cost at least $2 million, was not linked to Sister Chanel moving out.
Restoration had not yet begun, he said.
"It's a costly exercise and we are going through the process of justifying the expense."
However, the house had been "totally weatherproofed" and a conservation architect had drawn up a restoration plan, he said.
The board had not yet decided how the house would be used but options included meetings and conferences.
Marinoto House
• 1878: Built of Port Chalmers bluestone and Oamaru stone for John McGregor.
• 1883: Property sold unfinished at mortgagee sale to Arthur Morris, a director of the Union Steam Ship Company. House completed and named Marinoto, meaning calm or peace.House comprised 14 main rooms plus grand foyer and servants' quarters. Had coal-fired central-heating system and electric lights powered by a generator. Set in large grounds including gardens, tennis court and croquet lawn.
• 1903: Bought by wealthy Dunedin businessman Percy (later Sir Percy) Sargood.
• 1940s: Bought by Otago Hospital Board and used as convalescent home.
• 1960: Bought by Sisters of Mercy. Mater Misericordiae (later Mercy) Hospital built in the groundsSource: Dunedin Homes and Houses, Lois Galer
