Little Red House’s final chapter
When Alana Pearce was asked what she wished to retrieve from the wreckage of her former home, she had to put some thought into what would have survived its deluge of mud.
In the end, she settled on crockery – and one piece in particular, a 45 year old casserole dish that belonged to her late father, a wedding present that had lasted through the decades.
“Everything else had been ransacked,” she told the Nelson Mail on Friday as the last of about 20 truckloads, or 200 tons of excess slip material, was moved from the site.
To find the dish, located under the sink in the kitchen, contractors had to tunnel through from the exterior to get to the kitchen benches.
At the time, there was about about 1.8m of silt within the kitchen, said Toby O’Sullivan, Isaac Construction Nelson Tasman regional manager.
O’Sullivan said it was “terrifying” to see a property in that state, where silt had come through the back door and the windows, out into the kitchen, making its way into the lounge and the bedroom while someone was sleeping.
“It’s a miracle that everyone is safe,” he said. It took a week to prepare the property for deconstruction, and a week to dismantle the house itself.
Pearce was in tears when she was presented the casserole dish, a picture of her and her brother Matthew as children, and a VHS recording of Pearce at around age nine interviewing her maternal grandparents by Nelson mayor Nick Smith.
The feeling was “unreal”, she said.
“I never thought I would see this again, never in a million years. I’m a bit overwhelmed. I had so many bad dreams for so, so, so long.
“Now when I look at this I’m like ‘that’s it’.”
Gesturing at the flattened land, Pearce said it was time to close that chapter of her life, and keep trucking on.
Smith said the little red house was the symbol of the August 2022 storm and the heartache that came from it, and it was a really important milestone to have the last load leaving on Friday.
The house on Rocks Rd was the last of 16 properties bought out by the council on a 50/50 basis with central government, 11 of which were in The Brook, four in Tāhunanui and one in Bishopdale.
Smith said some of the properties would become reserves and would be planted out, while others might be suitable for selling to an adjourning landowner with a covenant that said it could not be built upon, providing what would effectively become an extended garden.
The Rocks Rd site was “particularly precious”, with a view that was “just iconic Nelson”, that could potentially become a picnic area for people to use the reserve.
However, transportation safety would have to be addressed, as the property not only sat on a very busy state highway, but also was just around a corner from a blind spot.
“The next step is to work through those questions,” he said.
While the distinctive red of the 1940s bungalow’s weatherboards are now gone, both Pearce and Smith liked the sound of a red picnic table on the spot, where Pearce said swimmers once changed on the front lawn.
By Warren Gamble, Nelson Mail
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