The Hone Tuwhare Charitable Trust hopes to raise enough funds to buy and restore the crib as a writers' residence, the poet's son, Rob Tuwhare, said from Auckland yesterday.
"We're about to have our first meeting of the year in Auckland to decide a launch date for the fundraising open day," he said.
"It's been a long and slow process. It took five years to set up the Colin McCahon house in Titirangi.
But preserving Dad's crib is the best way of keeping his legacy alive.
I just think Dad would love it if people were going down there to write and be inspired by what he was," Mr Tuwhare said.
"Not a lot of people up here know about the Catlins. It's a bit of a gem. It's a very special corner of the world."
Tuwhare lived the last 16 years of his life in the modest one-roomed seaside crib, after moving to Kaka Point in 1992.
He died in Dunedin, aged 85, in January, 2008.
The Hone Tuwhare Charitable Trust patron is Sir Paul Reeves and the trustees are Rob Tuwhare, Ella Henry, Carol Hirschfeld, Matt Shirtcliffe and Suze Keith, while Dunedin poet Peter Olds and Dunedin writer Cilla McQueen have liaison roles.
