History of Willowford Cottage

Built in the 1950s, the cottage was originally used as accommodation for Willowford Farm, which is a further 5 km up Willowford Rd. There was no road access to the farm at that time so a house could not be built over on the property.

Once access was established and the house was no longer required, it was sold to Kaweka Forest and was used as the forestry headquarters. Plans were made to build a bigger headquarters on the property and a site was levelled in preparation. Eventually the decision was made to build further up the Napier-Taihape Rd at its current site.

Wrekin then bought back the cottage and corresponding 7ha and it has been rented out to various tenants over the years.

We bought the property in March 2009 and set about restoring it. The first decision to make was whether we pulled down the original cottage as it was very run-down and literally on its last legs. The roof leaked, every room inside would have to be renovated and there was a huge amount of work to be done on the outside and the land. But the house was sound and we wanted to keep the authenticity of the place. So we decided to renovate – a decision we regretted a few times but still knew it was the right one! The cottage is now unrecognisable to what it used to be and we are very proud of how it has rebirthed.

We ummed and aahed about renaming the cottage with some fancy name, but it has always been known as "Willowford" as the stream running below it is called Willowford Stream. In the end we decided that there was no other name that it could be.