Author(s): Da Vella Gore

Biographies & Memoirs

Da ' Vella is an established New Zealand artist, whose paintings hang in board rooms, institutions and homes throughout New Zealand, the United States and England. Impulsive by nature, she set out one day to buy a pound of butter and returned instead with the materials from a historic Catholic Church. On the way to the dairy, she happened upon workmen tearing down a church. She arranged to purchase the reuseable materials and transported them 500 kms across a mountain pass to her building site at Lake Hayes. With her lively imagination and artistic flair she designed a grand old English style country house. In spite of opposition from family and friends she purchased a second Catholic church to provide more joinery. Local stone was collected for the walls and roofing slate from the church was transported. This is the extraordinary story of how a vision became reality. Of how Da 'Vella acquired a heap of consecrated wood, stone and glass, and in spite of staggering obstacles a house emerged which is now a cultural centre for international and local art schools and workshops. The story of the close bond between mother and son, and their triumphs over difficulties is told with warmth and humour. This true and unusual story of homemaking the hard way records the realisation of an almost impossible dream