In 1992, I moved from Switzerland to New Zealand. For the first nine years, I lived in Hokitika. My husband and I had an antique shop there. Every year, I travelled to Europe and filled a container with antiques and brought them to Hokitika to sell.
Around 2001, I bought land with a house, a garage, a cottage and about three small farm buildings. I wanted to continue running an antique shop in Wakefield. I had the garage converted into a shop, but I didn’t have enough space to display everything.
In 2003, I was able to buy the outdoor jail formerly used by Stoke police (now our toy museum) and the Betheren Hall from Collingwood Street in Nelson (our church). Both buildings were brought to Wakefield, and together with the cottage and the other farm buildings, it began to look like a small village.
One day, an elderly gentleman came into my shop and gave me a photo of a house with a few ladies standing in front of it. The photo was from 1880, and on the back, it said Willow Bank. He said the building had once stood on my land. That’s why our village is now called Willow Bank.
In 2006, I closed my shop. I had the church converted into a small café and invited retirement homes for afternoon tea. My late partner, Kim Kerslake, and my late friends Rob and Raewyn McAllister helped from the beginning with the changes at Willow Bank. Scott Anderson was our main builder/renovator.
Unfortunately, Kim passed away in 2015.
Scott and I have been a couple since early 2016. He is the main renovator at Willow Bank. In order to achieve a lot with little expense, he mainly uses materials that we receive as donations or can buy from suppliers who give us good prices, so we can continue to expand the little village.
My role in this project is mainly sewing costumes and helping wherever I can.