Marco Creemers and Ryan Sanders bought the former Earnscleugh homestead, also known as Spain’s Folly and now called Earnscleugh Castle, about a year ago.
They knew they were in for a long, expensive journey bringing the home, built in 1920, into the 21st century.
The building was never completed as intended with a roughcast (plaster) exterior. The concrete columns at the front and the balustrade lining the roof were also left unfinished.
The couple knew they were taking on a huge project but what they had not bargained on was becoming part of a debate over whether finishing the building according to the original plans, more than 100 years after it was begun, was in keeping with its heritage value.
The Central Otago District Council considered their plans a discretionary activity and required a notified resource consent, which had hindered their plans for at least a year and added hundreds of thousands of dollars for consultants’ reports and resource consent application fees to the already huge renovation cost, Mr Creemers said.
Any addition or alteration to a Category One heritage building, such as Earnscleugh Castle, did require a resource consent.
But what astonished the new owners was that it was their decision to apply plaster, as noted on the original plans, while adding non-invasive seismic strengthening on the exterior, and the colour of the plaster that had led to extended debate.
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (HNZPT) had accepted their plans, especially when it was clear the seismic strengthening could be done with the plastering rather than internally with significant intrusion into the building, Mr Creemers said.
HNZPT Southern region acting director Christine Whybrew said there were several factors mitigating the potential adverse effects of undertaking external plastering on the heritage values.
One of HNZPT arguments was that the cultural heritage value was in the building’s unfinished state.
The resource consent hearing would be "our guy arguing with theirs".
"We are the victims of this argument," Mr Creemers said.
The proposed plastering would cost more than $550,000.
The couple had been working on the adjacent coach house and planned to move into that soon.
They intended to create an upmarket bed and breakfast business offering accommodation to a maximum of six guests at a time.
"We want to honour the house."
As costs keep mounting, the couple’s enthusiasm has not waned, although it took a battering when they first heard about the notified consent hearing.
"It took a while to get my head around it and calm down," Mr Creemers said.
The earthquake strengthening should have been finished this summer but the resource consent process has meant that has not even started.
Submissions on the resource consent close on March 20.
