History – A home through generations

When you travel in Europe, you are struck by the age of homes still occupied many centuries after they were built.

Not so in New Zealand, where, apart from the homes of the early missionaries built in the 1820s and 1830s, the oldest wooden homes of European settlers date back only to the 1850s.

The McKenzie/Fraser House in Glenmohr Rd, Waipū, is one of these. It was built in 1857, shortly after the arrival of the Nova Scotian Highland Scots in September 1854. Until the death of Terence Ryan in 2022, the house had been home to eight generations of Frasers and McKenzies.

It is now in the care of Heritage New Zealand.

The story of the original occupants, Hugh McKenzie and Mary Fraser, is fascinating and very different from those of other Nova Scotian settlers. Mary and Hugh were engaged in 1852, but Mary’s parents made it very clear that the young couple were expected to sail with the Fraser family on the Margaret, which was set to sail for Australia.

However, young Hugh did not wish to leave his family, so the couple eloped and were married by a rival minister of the Rev Norman McLeod. A real act of defiance! Time mellowed feelings and five years later, Hugh, Mary and their three children sailed with Hugh’s parents and siblings on the Spray, arriving in Auckland in June 1857.

A house was needed for the young family, so two local Nova Scotian settlers built the dwelling using construction methods, styles and materials typical of the earliest dwellings.

A kauri tree was selected, felled and pit-sawn into planks, and the boards were planed, all with hand tools. Tōtara roofing shingles were split from logs and pūriri blocks chosen as the most durable material for underfloor piles to support the house.

Bricks were moulded and fired, and lime was burnt to produce cement for chimney construction. Window sashes and doors were made on site, and specially shaped planes were used to create the tongue-and-groove timbers for flooring and wall lining.

Plumbing was not required, as nearby streams initially served as both bathroom and washhouse. Cooking was done in a camp oven over an open fire in a large kitchen, which was also the dining and family living area. The veranda may have been added later after it became apparent that northern hemisphere housing styles needed modification for this different climate.

The house was originally built near the river, but floods in the valley meant it was shifted to higher ground using a method typical of the district — a bullock team and skids. At least one of the skids can be found under the house, which still stands, 169 years later, structurally unaltered apart from a lean-to kitchen and an iron roof.

– Sharon Cole