The Grand Ellerslie Estate has stood on Auckland’s Great South Road since 1950. For most of the last century it hosted families, weddings and — briefly, during the war — a hospital ward. By the time our team walked through its doors in early 2023, decades of layered paint, water damage and well-intentioned but poorly matched repairs had left almost every surface obscured. The oak parquet floor looked, at first glance, like it was beyond saving.
Nine months later, that same floor was gleaming again — not restored to new, but restored to itself.
When a wall speaks
There’s a growing tension in New Zealand’s heritage sector between two philosophies. On one side, complete replacement — strip out the compromised, install the modern equivalent, and preserve only the elements too iconic to touch. On the other, painstaking restoration — bring back what’s already there, at whatever cost.
Both approaches have their place. But the middle ground — the sort of restoration where the goal is not perfection but honesty — is where most of our work sits.
Heritage buildings weren't built with modern maintenance schedules in mind. They were built with the assumption that they would be looked after — not deep-cleaned every quarter, but attended to. A small stain here, a re-oiling of a door hinge there, a repointing of a wall segment every few years.
That model of continuous care is what our heritage programme tries to reintroduce. We don't arrive with a bucket and a checklist. We arrive with a scope and a hypothesis.
The chemistry of care
Almost every heritage surface has been treated with something at some point. Understanding what was applied, when, and why, is the first step in deciding what can be safely removed and what has to stay.
Take the Ellerslie oak floor. Under the top layer of yellowing polyurethane was a wax-based sealer applied sometime in the 1980s. Under that, a shellac from — we suspect — the 1920s. And beneath it all, the original oil finish from the 1950s. Each layer had to be identified, tested, and either preserved or carefully removed, in that specific order.
Our four principles for heritage-safe restoration
Test before you touch. Every heritage surface gets a discreet swatch test — ideally in an area covered by furniture or trim — before any cleaning agent is applied more broadly.
Match the era, not the market. Modern cleaning chemistry is engineered for modern surfaces. Heritage surfaces almost always respond better to gentler, more traditional formulations.
Reversibility over finish. If a treatment can't be undone, we don't apply it — no matter how good it looks in the moment.
Document everything. Every intervention is photographed, timed and logged, so the next team to work on this surface — perhaps decades from now — has a starting point.
Beyond the building
The work is inherently slower and more expensive than modern maintenance. A single heritage room might take our team as long as a whole small office to properly assess and treat. So why do we invest in it?
Partly the craft — there's something deeply satisfying about the work itself. But mostly it's about what happens next.
Every heritage building we help restore continues to be used — as a venue, a workplace, a home. Restored properly, they don't just look better. They function better, cost less to maintain long-term, and — perhaps most importantly — teach the next generation of property owners and managers that heritage isn't a burden. It's an asset.
What's next
Our heritage programme currently operates in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, with expansion to Dunedin planned for early 2026. If you look after a heritage property — from a private residence to a public building — we'd love to hear from you.
The Grand Ellerslie Estate reopened to the public in September 2024. The oak floor is still there. It always was.
