Retired Royal Air Force wing commander Mike Yule, of London, was making his third visit to the 148-year-old house, while it was the first for his Sydney-based son, Robin.
Built just nine years after surveyor John Turnbull Thomson selected the Ness St site for the new town of Invercargill, the house was a family home for draper Robert Yule and his wife Sarah (nee Rout).
They raised their six children there, although it is believed the house was two mirror-image ''two-up, two-down'' townhouses in its early days, one lived in by the Yules and the other rented out.
It was boarded up and derelict when it was bought for $25,000 in 2002 by the Trooper's Memorial Corner Charitable Trust, although about 80% of its original features were still intact including floors, stairs, windows, and exposed ceiling joists. Over the next four years it was restored to as near original as possible at a cost of $580,000.
Upstairs, five small bedrooms were converted into three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It is leased by the Southern Institute of Technology and used as a home for visiting lecturers who enjoy its mix of colonial charm and ''mod-cons''.
Open days are held about once every year to 18 months when the house is vacant.
Mike Yule said he did not know the house existed until a cousin in Canada told him about it in 2002. His first visit was in 2010.
He said he was ''very proud indeed'' of the house.
''It makes me proud to think a preservation society are willing to take on a project like this, then find the family and invite us to be part of the open days.''
In 2016, which will be the house's 150th birthday, he hoped many of Robert and Sarah's descendants would celebrate the occasion in Invercargill.
''That year will be something special and I will try and gather Yules from around the world together for a family reunion. What better place to hold it than here?''
