The Colourful Collector
Step into the entrance hall of this award-winning renovation and you’re greeted with an eclectic riot of colours and objects.
Words: Pattie Pegler Images: Dorothy McLennan
There’s a neat row of miniature Dutch pottery buildings in blue and white – they are given to business travellers on Dutch airline KLM. There’s a glorious red and gold camel standing on the corner and a collection of old-style kettles climb the staircase.
With a lifetime spent travelling overseas and 30 years living in the United States, this space houses the memories and the intriguing objects that Stella Robinson has collected over the years.
Stella moved into this home with her husband, Ashley some twenty years ago. At the time they were still to-ing and fro-ing between their life in the US, where Ashley was a professor in public health and veterinary science at the University of Minnesota, and life back here in their native New Zealand. But this didn’t stop them embarking on a full-scale renovation of the house. It’s a renovation that won awards – and not surprisingly.
The double-storey home is light and bright with the rich tones of rimu on door and window frames. In the living room a rimu clad ceiling is punctured by four skylights where sunshine pours in by the fireplace. Glass doors lead through to the open plan kitchen and a dining area where beams soar skywards above the dinner table into a dome ceiling.
In the adjoining lounge area a vaulted ceiling is marked by rimu cross beams and a large picture window that looks over a garden swaying with spring colour. It’s in clear view from all the living areas and pale blossoms jostle for attention with pastel pink magnolias and vibrant coloured rhodos. The garden is very much part of this house with its light, bright aspect.
“I’ve always been interested in interiors and designs,” says Stella. But she’s also not afraid of hard work – she did all the oiling of every piece of rimu in this home herself she says and still mows the lawns herself in the 5-acre garden.
The light, bright space provides the perfect backdrop for the unique and unusual things she has brought back from as far afield as Thailand and Palestine.
“I loved shopping at the markets and the souks,” recalls Stella. “I would often go off there when Ashley was working and I loved looking at all the bits and pieces.” Her finds include some beautiful glass painted balls from Amman in Jordan and a set of elephants of varying sizes – opium weights from Thailand.
But there’s a clear kiwi influence here too. And somehow the two worlds blend seamlessly. Some Beatrix Potter figurines stand on a painted, wooden shelf from Morocco.
On one wall there is a photograph of a group of young ladies in Palestinian national dress.
“It was on the wall in a hotel we stayed at in Ramallah,” says Stella. “Ashley asked the hotel manager where we could get one and he just took it off the wall and gave it to us.”
On an adjoining wall is a very kiwi water painting of the archetypal rural red shed.
After spending 30 years in the US however, Stella has found it hard in some ways to leave her life there behind entirely. Her daughter, currently recovering from Covid, remains living in Minnesota with her own family and Stella also misses friends she has left behind. And she confesses to being transfixed by the unfolding dramas of US politics – spending much of her time watching CNN in the peaceful, bright lounge area.
“It’s the same language but a different culture. I do miss my friends,” she says, reflecting on her time overseas. But she has made new friends and reconnected with old ones back in North Canterbury.
“I think I just fit in wherever I am”, she says.