Arrowtown cottage labour of love

Project people are the Jenkinses, but no project has been more satisfying for the couple than the restoration of their historic Arrowtown convent home.

Alan and Kath Jenkins moved from Auckland eight years ago, after holidaying in Arrowtown for several years.

"We used to holiday down here and loved it. One day, we just said, 'Why are we going back?

"We love it down here'," Mrs Jenkins said.

Suckers for punishment, the couple did not just want to buy and move in, they wanted something they could work at and the old church convent on Merioneth St was just the challenge they wanted.

"It was quite run-down. The state of it was just appalling," she said.

"We wanted a project and had previously restored villas, something with a bit of history and character," he said.

The cottage certainly had the history. The cottage was built in the early 1870s and was home to Arrowtown's only lawyer at the time, Henry Stratford. It was bought by the Catholic Church in the 1890s and used as a home for nuns until the 1940s.

The Church had added two bedrooms on the northern side of the house and a music room. The original rooms remain and a lot of the original material and stone is still intact.

In 2004, the couple bought the property and have since added to it, built around it and made the old cottage into a home.

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Arrowtown cottage labour of love