Laughter mixed with tears at the funeral for flamboyant interior designer and television personality David McNee north of Wellington yesterday.
Family and friends remembered a caring, artistic and vital man who did not deserve his brutal end.
Mr McNee, 55, best known for appearances on home improvement programmes My House, My Castle
and Changing Rooms, was found dead in his Auckland home a week ago. He had been bashed about the head. Police arrested a man and charged him with murder last night.
The 200-strong congregation in Waikanae, on the Kapiti Coast, were urged to focus on Mr McNee's life, not the manner of his death.
"David would want us to celebrate his life with dignity," celebrant Don Manning said. "He wouldn't want us to be too morbid or sad."
Mr Manning said Mr McNee could rub people up the wrong way with his directness but "he was also a dear boy who rang his mother twice a day".
His mother, Eva McNee, lives in Waikanae.
Mr McNee was born in Invercargill and grew up in Hamilton and Wellington, where he attended Scots College.
After leaving school, he worked in a variety of jobs in New Zealand and overseas, including running his own restaurant in the United States, real estate in Wellington and Sydney, and interior decorating.
Long-time family friend Mick Robbers said everyone was astounded, mystified and angry at Mr McNee's senseless death.
"I will always remember David for his love for his family."
He would be ordering people around wherever he was now.
"I can imagine him arriving at the gates [of heaven] and saying, 'These gates have got to go'."
Mr McNee's niece Kate Zaloumis had always regarded him as more of a friend than an uncle.
Brother-in-law John Oliver said his recently redecorated Wellington home was a memorial to Mr McNee, who never saw the finished colour scheme he had picked out for Mr Oliver and his wife, Barbara.
"Nobody deserved to die like he did, a bit like a dog in a ditch," he said. "The tragedy was that he died alone and it was two days before they found him."
- NZPA
