Tracey Scott

Grand Master of Photography’s master stroke preserving historic Whakarewarewa home 

Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures/video Stephen Parker

There’s a skeleton in Tracey Scott’s closet. It’s under the stairs at Te Hemo, the heritage Whakarewarewa house she’s lived in since two Christmases past.     

Acquiring the grand, turreted residence had always topped her life’s game plan.  

Whenever she passed it as a child she insisted it was “my house”. Her family metaphorically patted her on the head, indulging what they considered fanciful “kid’s talk”.

Tracey knew it wasn’t.

Five decades on the Rotorua woman who earlier this year was named a New Zealand Grand Master of Photography, acquired Te Hemo.

That’s where the skeleton in the closet comes into play.  It’s one of the innovative props that’s carried Tracey Scott to the pinnacle of her profession. 

Te Hemo personifies her creative talents. These are sealed by a diploma from the Otago School of Fine Arts, along with a lifelong love of the “old and interesting.” 

Te Hemo is exactly that.

The name was given to the property by its original owner Charles Kusabs who, it’s claimed, built it as a love token for his wife, Cora.

As Tracey understands it the name Te Hemo loosely translates from te reo Maori to “the end”.

It makes geographic sense. Approaching the house from the north it stands where Fenton Street finishes and Hemo Road begins. At the risk of stating the obvious, coming from the south it’s vice versa. Pohutu geyser is over the back fence.  

 The house is huge -   354 square meters (6,500 square feet) of heart rimu, specifically cut for it at the Mamaku mill Charles Kusabs owned.

A pioneering entrepreneur, he was also a farmer and transport operator. He was the man who introduced Rotorua’s first sightseeing cars for tourists. 

Te Hemo is one of four local homes categorised by Heritage New Zealand  - Pohere Toanga –  as a grade two listed building.*

This legally protects its external colonial architecture and distinctive white and green paintwork from change. 

Time line

To give Te Hemo a time line, it represents three centuries of Rotorua history. Work on it began in 1897. It was completed in 1906. 

This was the period  when New Zealand lacked skilled craftsmen able to produce a number of Te Hemo’s bespoke features, including its pressed iron ceilings and stained glass windows. They had to be custom built in Europe.

Pre jet plane days it was a slow process between placing an order and a delivery arriving across the world.     

Te Hemo is the type of place that’s a breeding ground for back stories. One is that in the early 20th century it was known as that rare thing, a landlocked lighthouse. 

The turret light was the navigation point for Rotorua-bound travellers heading to the township in darkness. 

This is the sort of detail that fascinates Tracey. The accomplished rencounter thrives on it, sharing stories with overseas manuhiri (guests) as the Kusabs did before her.

 She shares her home with her chihuahua-foxie cross May, Airb&b and dinner guests. The latter come from cruise ships or are directed to her by Rotorua manuhiri specialist company Epic Maori. 

Tracey regularly hosts local fund raising events. The most recent was a Sunrise Rotary Club Christmas themed cocktail party for its Hospice endowment fund.

That was followed by two “donate-to-visit” open homes.

It was, she says, an “awesome experience”.  She danced for Hospice at its inaugural annual fundraiser and is a former Sunrise Rotary president.

Incarnations

Te Hemo is a house that’s had it’ share of incarnations and name changes yet has retained its character. 

After the Kusabs family moved on it became a convalescent hospital for First World War soldiers, a boarding house, then flats.

Not infrequently Tracey meets people who were there in its communal living days. They add to her fund of stories of times gone by.

In the 1970s the house was bought by Auckland businessman John Banks who became that city’s mayor, an MP and cabinet minster.

In silent partnership with local couple the late Bob and Noeline Sharplin, they transformed it into an upmarket restaurant which they named the Landmark. That’s the name many locals still call it.

Tracey bought the property from business couple Steve and Wendy Fraser, who’d owned it for 21 years.

“They bought it on a handshake when they were dining there on their fifth wedding anniversary.” 

She is full of admiration for the extensive restoration work they  undertook.

This included restoring the sweeping staircase, upgrading the kitchen and three bathrooms, enclosing the conservatory, putting in a pool and adding garage space.

“They did a magnificent job,” says Tracey who’s continued to build on the asset she acquired.

Labour of love 

The work’s a genuine labour of love.

“I’ve carried on from the major structural work, ripped up carpets, sanded and polished floors, put in two fireplaces and installed chandeliers throughout the house.”

There are 11, including a massive one over the stairs. They bring echoes of the elegance of the Palace of Versailles. Tracey’s done all the fiddly work, assembling them herself.

 Well, we did say she’s creative. 

The house is a living gallery of New Zealand art. Her antique collection is extensive and whimsical pieces like “that” skeleton in the closet and a hare toting a shot gun are imaginative talking points.

 “I’ve changed the interior colour scheme and just had wrought iron gates made. Both are more in keeping with the way things were in the Kusabs’ time.” 

 She’s converted the former parlour into a library – 2,500 books at the last count and still growing.

“I’m not really a TV person. I only have one under sufferance for the grandchildren.”

She’s candid about 21st century electronics not being her thing.

“I like a quieter pace of life. I have to use technology for my photography because I don’t have a choice, otherwise I ignore it.”

She dries washing on a pulley-operated rack hung from the ceiling, ignores the dishwasher and is presently converting the grounds into an edible garden.

“I think a garden is wasted if you can’t produce anything. It has to look pretty but it also has to produce something.” 

 Buying Te Hemo                                     

Tracey had never been coy about letting others know that buying Te Hemo topped her acquisition agenda.

It paid off. A friend pricked up her ears when she heard then owner Wendy Fraser mention they were planning to sell.

“She immediately phoned to tell me. Within minutes I’d called the agent, my former neighbour Marilyn Christian. 

“I asked if I could have a private viewing before it went on the market. 

“I knew immediately it was perfect for me. It was everything I wanted it to be.”

Tracey was so certain it would be hers she made a beeline to the council nursery and bought a set of Kentia palms for future delivery.

Her camera lens trained eye saw them as a picture prefect match for the conservatory and her colonial style cane furniture. 

Despite knowing another offer on Te Hemo had been accepted she kept the palms on hold.

“That didn’t deter me. About six months later the nursery rang to ask if I still wanted them. I said ‘yes, of course’.”

When a family tragedy prevented the prospective purchases from sealing their deal Tracey instantly reaffirmed her intention to buy  the house of her youthful imagining.

“The vendors did get higher offers but accepted mine. It just goes to prove the old adage that ‘often the first offer is the best offer’ is correct.”  

Whakarewarewa links

She is convinced family links to Whakarewarewa helped ignite her childhood passion for Te Hemo.

Her maternal grandfather, Stan Blackmore, co-owned the Arcadia photographic studio there in the 1930s. He specialised in aerial pictures taken from the aircraft he operated from the nearby aerodrome. It’s now Fenton Park.

“There’s this crazy photographic connection, a strange pull between my family and Whaka. 

“As a child I was completely oblivious to all that. I nearly bought that place a few years ago but when geothermal issues erupted suddenly out the back they put paid to that.” 

Tracey’s family’s Rotorua roots run deep.

When the 1929 depression hit, her grandfather Blackmore crossed the Mamakus from Hamilton. 

Like Kusabs, he too was entrepreneurial, operating as an aviator and founding a top-of-the-range car dealership.

“Before the depression came he was wealthy. Suddenly no one wanted to go flying, buy motorbikes or Bentleys.

“He tied an aircraft, I think it was a Desoutter, onto a trailer and towed it behind a Bentley convertible to Rotorua, stored them and started farming land he’d earlier bought at Iles Road.

Photographic connections continue

In another twist with a photographic connection Tracey lived on the farm in her early teenage years.

“I discovered a box of photos of Maori wahine in my wardrobe. Quite a few were from Whaka. I was especially drawn to one and hung it over my bed.

“When I came home from Otago it was gone. My mother had donated the pictures to the museum.  

“I’d always thought my grandfather had taken it but I made inquires and discovered it was the work of Arthur James Iles who’d opened a photography business in Rotorua in 1901.

“He’d lived in the house before selling the farm to my grandfather.

“That photograph went on to haunt me for nearly 50 years then one day I spotted it on Trade Me. It had been made into a transfer and pressed into a metal plate.

“I paid $500 for what’s basically a piece of tin, but a very lovely one.”

It’s one of the first pieces Te Hemo’s visitors see. 

There’s another tie to the city’s earlier professional photographers. Tracey’s first husband was John Fenwick. His father, the late Peter Fenwick, had a studio in Eruera Street. He was another who specialised in photographing local iwi.

Pererika Street 

Te Hemo isn’t the first house Tracey’s turned into a tribute to the past. 

In 2013 she acquired the 100-plus year old Pererika Street villa that had housed McCartney Antiques. Like Te Hemo she was fascinated by it.  

“I’d been in a million times and always liked the feel of it. It was relaxed, casual.

“I told John [McCartney] I wanted to buy it.

“He said ‘you might want to get a builder to have a look at it before you decide that’.  

“A couple of builders said I could throw $100,000 at it, and would need to spend more. I still wanted it.”

The work to make it habitable was extensive. 

“I made substantial changes, repiling, reroofing and rewiring it. It didn’t have a kitchen, bathroom or hot water. There were bars on the windows, no insulation or heating.”

Tracey lived there throughout the rebuild, remaining until she acquired Te Hemo.  

Haunted?

Is Te Hemo haunted? That’s the most frequent FAQ Tracey fields.

“Every second person who comes here asks that.

 “People think because it was a convalescent hospital people died here but I don’t think they did.

“I’m not a great believer in ghosts. I’ve never had a bad feeling about the place but some unexplained things involving pounamu have happened here. 

 “I’ve found two separate rings and an earring that at different times have suddenly appeared on the floor. Another earring was lying on the doorstep.

“The earrings aren’t a set. One is long, the other short. They aren’t mine or guests who’ve stayed.

“I’ve wracked my brains where they could have come from but have no idea. It’s very strange.

“It’s been suggested the house is giving me gifts.”

Hosting a possible ghost or not Tracey has “zero regrets” about acquiring her historic home.

My mother said I had rocks in my head when I purchased Pererika Street. She was a lot more enthusiastic about Te Hemo.

Her next project’s renovating the turret inside and out along with the attic below it.  This will have a personalised Kusabs touch. Tracey’s recently had a visit from Charles Kusabs’ grandson Mark Anthony Kusabs and his son Anthony Mark Kusabs who live in Australia.

“Mark Anthony’s a wood turner and he’s making balustrades as a gift for the attic. They also gave me a finger lime tree for the garden. That connection’s very special for me and Te Hemo.”
It’s where she plans to spend the rest of her days.

“I have this passion for all things old.

“I’m not a rich lister. I’ve always been a person who’s gone by intuition, gut instinct as opposed to a great financial plan. 

“My favourite saying is life’s not about waiting for the storm to pass. Life is about learning to dance in the rain.

“Tomorrow is promised to no man.”  

* The city’s other heritage listed homes are the carved Schuster whare close to Te Hemo, Glenhome in Rimu Street and Robertson House in Pererika Street.