Craft Work

Call it the long goodbye. After more than two decades in a home they have loved, restored and treasured, Michelle and Gary Backhouse were in no mad rush to close its handsome, jarrah-wood front door behind them for the final time.

‘Otari’, their century-old home, an elegant brick-and-title house designed and built by the celebrated Arts and Crafts architect James Walter Chapman-Taylor in Wellington’s Ngaio, sold last year. But, by negotiation with the new custodians of this taonga, the couple gave themselves a generous four months to farewell a home