As when bought - June 1989	Painted and new verandah - 1991

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In January 1989 my (then) husband David and I and our 2 kiddies aged 3 and 5, went for a picnic out North Canterbury way. We had been looking to buy a place out in the country, but on this particular day property buying was not on our agenda instead, a family picnic was, UNTIL... we drove through Balcairn. There we saw a very run down building known as 'The Coachhouse' for sale. The owner at that time was at the house for some reason, he did not live at the house anymore even though the house was full of his rubbish (and interestingly I found out later his girlfriend was a woman I had gone to school with in the 1970's in Christchurch), so David, the kids and I got to have a look through.

The place was a dive and it had to be seen to be believed. There was human excrement over the walls, mice droppings everywhere, 2 fridges in the kitchen that were full of spoiled food, filthy carpets, broken windows, the ceiling bowed in the middle about 5 inches, watermarks all down the inside walls, the attic room was unlined and had been used as a bird aviary, the house piles were all 'rumpty', the old brick lined cellar underneath the house had plastic bags full of potting soil and was rigged for irrigation of some very sick looking marijuana plants! Despite this we both fell in love with the place. We could see the potential 'The Coachhouse' had. So we bought it for $60,000 (with over an acre of land).

We shifted into The Coachhouse in June 1989. My parents came along...my mother cried! Our daughter Jess (5) cried all the way and didn't want to go to 'the stinky house'.  We arrived at the house ready to shift in, only to discover the previous owner hadn't shifted ANY of the junk out that was inside the house...it was raining... the kids were crying...all in all a disastrous start.

I should mention here that I had an interest in the area from the start. My G G G aunt and uncle Lucy (nee EVANS) and Benjamin PAWSEY farmed at Balcairn in the 1870's onwards. It was a warm fuzzy thought that they had possibly even been inside 'The Coachhouse', built c1877 by Sarah (nee MARTIN) and John LISTER (I have John LISTER's probate) and which at one stage was said to have been an illicit hotel. I did research all I could regarding this, even writing to the Hotel Association of New Zealand who confirmed it was never licensed but I came across nothing to confirm it was used illicitly either.  My research found nothing noting it had been used for a Coach House either and I wonder if the title came from someone's overactive imagination ;-)

So we started on the renovations. These were awesome, because no matter what we did, EVERYTHING looked better than what it had previous.

Before upgrade ~ 1989 Bathroom was at end of kitchen

After upgrade ~ 1991 (don't be fooled... that bench was 12 foot long!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a bit unfortunate that our marriage ended in November 1992 and we never realised the dream of seeing The Coachhouse completed.   It was sold again in January 2007 by the people who bought it off us originally in March 1993 and has been sold a couple of times since.  The latest marketing of it - February 2013 where it is noted as being earthquake damaged.  I had heard through other sources that the land underneath was considered to be a risk factor for the house and that it was considered unstable.

And YES...we did have many eerie things happen while there. We ourselves saw several 'spirits' but it never felt malicious at any time :-)

• A woman in Victorian dress going thru the kitchen door when it was closed, this happened several times and she also frequented the attic room which we made into our bedroom.

• My husband woke to find a male entity hovering over me and who turned to stare at him.

• Our son (3 years old at the time) picked out a picture of Sarah LISTER, the wife of the original owner/builder in the 1870's in a scrapbook I had. He said she was the 'lady in the wood wall' that he had seen the night before, (we had by that stage taken the scrim lining off his bedroom walls and it was bare planks).

• Lights would turn on in the house by themselves

• I would hear footsteps upstairs when only I was home and my brother absolutely refused to come out to visit past dark and he didn't believe in ghosts!

As a bit of a spooky footnote, the guy we bought The Coachhouse off in 1989 reappeared in my life in   2002.  He bought a section of land in Mataura that my now deceased Uncle had owned, quite random really!

Dining room before renovation - 1989 It was a FREEZING winter!	Backyard - 1992 We developed a fantastic vegetable garden
Dining room after renovation - 1991	Backyard - 1992