Now the estate, established in 1912, is up for sale.
She told OneRoof: “I have a big interest in houses and I particularly like the period in which this house was built. I have a real thing for anything of the Edwardian era. The literature, the clothes, the architecture, everything about that time.”
At the time, Ferrari had just ordered architectural plans to expand her Auckland home but she was also looking for excuse to do something different.
“I was tired of the job I was doing and thinking I wanted to do something else. I was thinking I wanted to change jobs.”
She knew that well-preserved Edwardian homes in New Zealand were few and far between so she acted quickly; $610,000 and several months later, Ferrari and her family were on their way to Windwhistle.
Gunyah Country Estate was established in 1912 for the son of former Prime Minister Sir John Hall, and is spread over 11.5ha near the Southern Alps.
“Gunyah was a bit sad. It looked like an old folks’ home,” she told OneRoof.
Luckily, the homestead had been built by master craftspeople and so its integrity was still intact.
“The building has not been mucked around with because it was in the country, and it was just somebody’s farmhouse. They existed, they did the farming, and that was it. So, in a way it survived through neglect,” she said.
“Everything was beautifully made. If you run your hands on all the panelling, it’s still absolutely perfectly flush.”
Ferrari and her family restored some of the outbuildings into self-contained cottages, which they were then able to rent out, and then tacked the gardens, something that was well within Ferrari’s wheelhouse, having won awards for her landscaping work.
At the time of the disaster, she told the New Zealand Herald: “Our ceiling came down as I was trying to get out of bed. I can’t believe we got out. The quake was something – it was as if the house had been hit by a train 20 times, jolting back and forth and there was a bomb underneath. I have whiplash pain in my neck and back.”
The family’s post-quake restoration took a year to complete but it was worth it, with the estate growing in popularity with tourists – both from New Zealand and overseas.
“I’ll never retire I’ll aways be doing something. But I have a few bits of metal in my body now and the physical aspect of working in the garden, bending down, making people’s beds, is getting a bit tricky.
“I’d love to stay here, but I don’t see it happening the older I get. It’s just the classic time in life when you move on. I’m not a spring chicken anymore.”
The deadline sale for the 15 bedroom, 12 bathroom, 540sq-m home closes on December 5.
