Big News in our Annex Rooms!

March 31, 2015

As a Category One historic property, the main lodge building of Pen-y-bryn is protected by Heritage NZ, preventing us from doing anything to change the appearance of any of its rooms, or to the appearance of the interior or exterior of the building. As a result, our two “main lodge building” guest rooms–The Elizabeth and Victoria Rooms–are kept as the original plans dictated when the house was designed and built in the 1880s, and of course our public rooms, including the dining room, drawing room, and billiards room, all appear today as they did when Pen-y-bryn was occupied by the original Bulleid family.

While our Oamaru stone “annex” building was part of the original Pen-y-bryn estate, that building was extensively rebuilt in 1994, and thus is not subjected to the same restrictions. We have thus engaged an architect to help convert these three rooms into mini-suites, with a much larger sleeping area, bathrooms with both bathtub and shower, and significantly increased storage space. These rooms will go from being our smallest rooms to being by far our largest, exceeding 43 square metres (460 square feet) each, and each will have the option of accommodating a third adult or child in the room (at an additional charge).

Because of this construction project, the Garden, Nest and Park Rooms will be closed from June through September 2015, and will reopen on 1 October 2015. In addition, the entire lodge will be closed from 10 June to 7 August. We are very excited by this new development, and look forward to sharing these larger premises with our guests starting in the spring!