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From issue: Summer 2003

1930s Style Gives Life to Modern Ranfurly

by Ian Dougherty

Restored Art Deco buildings are helping to revitalise a part of rural Otago.

Ranfurly - rural art deco. Image: Ian Dougherty

Think Art Deco buildings in New Zealand and chances are Napier will come to mind.Think Maniototo and it's just as likely to be images of bare-bones landscapes, sheep and the ancient sport of curling. People in the Maniototo town of Ranfurly are trying to switch that mind-set from sheep to chic.

Ranfurly was established in 1898 as a railhead for the Central Otago railway line. Originally known as Eweburn, the town was renamed after the then Governor-General, the fifth Earl of Ranfurly, who donated the Log of Wood for interprovincial rugby supremacy. The locals were not overly impressed with the viceregal imposition and wanted to retain the sheepish original name.

The Green House, Ranfurly. Image: Ian Dougherty

The Central Otago railway line bypassed Naseby, and Ranfurly gradually replaced the former goldrush town as the main centre of Maniototo. New buildings were erected in Ranfurly to accommodate the town's enhanced status, including offices for the Maniototo County Council, which transferred its headquarters from Naseby to Ranfurly in 1936.

Other new buildings appeared as a result of a succession of suspicious fires in the 1930s that destroyed the public hall in 1931 and the hotel in 1933. Both were soon rebuilt. The 1930s building boom included a new post office, which opened in 1935.

The 1948 Centennial Milk Bar building doubles as an Art Deco museum and as a base for an artist-in-residence programme. Picture: Ian Dougherty

Whereas Ranfurly's earliest buildings were typical turn-of-the century wooden affairs, many of the town's new edifices were constructed in the fashionable Art Deco style of the time. The simplicity of the design made them quick to erect - in concrete, plaster or brick. Their relative cheapness suited the state of economic depression, as did the way in which moulded shapes, relief decorations and vivid colours could be easily used to beautify the buildings.

Edna McAtamney, rural Art Deco coordinator in her secondhand shop, Decollectables. Picture: Ian Dougherty

Ranfurly's Art Deco development was aided and abetted by a sympathetic firm of architects, H. McDowell Smith, who favoured the English version of the style, and by Ranfurly's resident builders, J.M. Mitchell & Son, who continued to construct Art Deco buildings after they ceased to be fashionable elsewhere.

From the late 1980s, Ranfurly experienced decline and closure. The rural economy slumped. Local government reorganization saw the local body headquarters transfer to Alexandra. The railway line no longer carried trains. Government agencies such as the post office closed. Businesses went the same way, including the town's only petrol station. When the local sawmill shut down, 26 families left town.

Ranfurly has responded in part by creating a unique persona - the rural Art Deco town of New Zealand. Rural Art Deco coordinator Edna McAtamney has driven the project, which arose out of a 1999 workshop to try to identify economic opportunities for the town. The local body politician (and wife of opera singingfarmer David McAtamney) came up with the concept of refurbishing the town centre and its taken-for-granted Art Deco buildings, and promoting the town as a tourist destination.

Most of Ranfurly's Art Deco buildings have since been restored to their former glory by their owners. Many of the exteriors just needed a lick of paint, which a paint manufacturer and local paint shop supplied at a 40-per-cent discount.

However, one building in particular, the 1948 Art Deco Centennial Milk Bar in Claremont St, needed much more than mere make-over. The derelict building was destined for firefighting practice until the Central Otago District Council bought it and leased it out at a peppercorn rental to the local rural Art Deco incorporated society. The move was controversial, prompting a petition from some residents who feared a rate increase to pay for the purchase.

The former milk bar has been transformed, largely by voluntary labour, into an Art Deco museum, crammed with exhibits from the Maniototo area. The museum has attracted 35,000 visitors since it opened in 2000.

Since 2001, thousands of Art Deco aficionados and fun-seekers have flocked to Ranfurly each February for a rural Art Deco weekend, this year attracted more than 8000 visitors to the town (resident population about 800). The weekend brings into Ranfurly more revenue than does the entire six-week Christmas holiday period.

Some of the residents and visitors get into the spirit of the weekend by dressing in 1920s and '30s garb. Pearls, kiss curls, boas, flapper dresses, pin stripes and white shoes abound.

The 2004 February 27-29 programme ranges from jazz, cabaret, a street festival and picnic to a piglet race and duck shoot.A special open season has been declared on paradise ducks in the Maniototo for the Art Deco weekend. Hunters will be able to enter the Art Deco shooting competition for three ducks of varying sizes. It will be up to the hunters to decide whether the three ducks end up stuffed in an oven or on a wall.

Ranfurly is undergoing a tourism-led economic revival as a result of the project, combined with the conversion of the ribbon of former railway land into the Otago Central Rail Trail, which brings a steady procession of hiking, biking and horse-riding visitors to the town.

Within five years, Ranfurly has gone from housing surplus to housing shortage. New, tourist-oriented businesses have opened, including a backpackers in the former post office building, a couple of guest houses (one with an Art Deco theme), several additional home stays, a couple of cafes, a couple of second-hand shops (one specialising in Art Deco objects) and a craft shop. The petrol station has re-opened, the disused railway station has been turned into an information centre, and the rail yards and goods shed are being converted into an Art Deco agricultural machinery display.

"Economically, the rural Art Deco project has been very significant," Edna McAtamney says. "The number of tourists that travel through here now is quite astounding. We have opened another gateway to Queenstown.The social benefits have been even more outstanding. It's really great to see your community standing up, instead of people walking along the street, shoulders down."

The process of becoming tourist attractions and tourism facilities has also enhanced the long-term prospects of Ranfurly's Art Deco buildings, which comprise a unique feature of rural New Zealand.

Programme details on the Ranfurly rural Art Deco weekend on 27-29 February 2004 are available on (03) 444 9010 or www.ruralartdeco.co.nz