Virginia Wright

Cromwell builder favours tricky jobs

Garry Morton has been building since he left school 40-plus years ago, 32 of them in Cromwell. He’s been operating his family business Cromwell Building Contractors (CBC) for the last 10 years. His son and foreman Codee (32yrs) has been with him for the last eight years, his daughter Jacinda (26yrs) is three-quarters of the way through her apprenticeship, and while his wife Julie has her own business, she’s there solidly supporting them all. Currently, the team is rounded out by Matt Napir, who stayed on after completing his apprenticeship, and carpenter Greg Holmes. According to Garry, the only reason he started building was because it was the only apprenticeship he could get when he was determined to leave school, luckily so as it turned out. “I basically fell in love with it and I can’t see myself doing anything else. I enjoy doing it, enjoy working with people, and enjoy the challenges, especially of doing odd-ball stuff.” Garry’s early focus on alterations and extensions was side-tracked by a surge of new houses to be built, but he’s happy to report that in the last 10 years alterations and renovations have increased again - and the more complicated the better from his point of view. They tend to be lengthy jobs, up to two years, depending not least on the age of the building being renovated. A recent 1906 restoration took 16 months. Before that, he, Codee and the team, together with their trusted subcontractors, spent 20 months restoring Stronsay Farm, owned by Sherry Thornburg and Samuel Belk otherwise known as Q. CBC had already worked on an old, relocated church next door for Sherry and Q, which led to an invitation to look at their stone cottage. Originally a shearers’ quarters, it had been upgraded in the ’90s complete with carpet, gib walls and a kitchen. “I went across and had a look and fell in love with the place the moment I walked in the door,” says Garry. When asked what they had in mind, Q and Sherry knew they wanted it modernised while keeping the old look, but admitted to not knowing where to start. “We had used two architects, but Garry suggested we just work with his draftsman, a wise choice as it turned out,” explains Q. After three months of pulling the ’90s refit apart to reveal the original stone fireplace and walls made of pressed mud and straw complete with 1920s’ newspaper lining them, the renovation could begin. Sherry and Q had realised over time that their builders shared their desire to restore and enhance the house so the “design” as Q puts it “was usually a morning chat with Garry and Codee saying ‘what do you want’, and us leaving it up to them.” They were given the ability to do what they wanted within reason, explains Garry. “The main priority was to still keep the place looking like it was 120 years old. So we sourced 100-year- old doors to put back in, and all the architraves and skirting were re-run timber to match the existing house. We replaced the floor in the kitchen with old, recycled T and G from the Christchurch earthquake and even the stone on the outside was sourced to match the existing.” Optum Plumbing were brought in to do new drains and plumbing to a new extension including a new hot water system in the roof space. The extension itself was built by closing in a porch using macrocarpa posts complete with T n G and macrocarpa trusses they made themselves. “We used roughsawn macrocarpa because when you don’t treat it with anything it goes grey very quickly to fit in with the aged look of the existing house.” The builder-client relationship strengthened into a friendship, with both sides grateful for the opportunity to work together and create that bond, while at the same time creating an end result worth the time and effort that went into it. “We can’t speak highly enough of them or of our ‘new’ house. It’s strengthened, it’s livable, it’s warm. We ended up with a house but also a museum piece,” says Q. “The main priority was to still keep the place looking like it was 120 years old. So we sourced 100-year- old doors to put back in, and all the architraves and skirting were re-run timber to match the existing house.”