For most travellers, Pirinoa is a one-horse town that's not worth a look in the rear-vision mirror, but a husband and wife team are determined to turn the roadside village into the pride of Wairarapa.
Corina and Raymond Donges have renovated a century-old blacksmith's shop into an arts and crafts store,
and they hope, once they buy the coffee machine, they will lure the Greytown latte-set deep into the south.
The couple say the building wasn't much to look at when they took it over, strung out in 16 years' worth of cobwebs and rat droppings, but three months of hard labour have revived it.
Mr Donges, a builder, has scooped out the wooden shack's innards and Ms Donges, a photographer and art buff, has filled it floor-to-wall in paintings, knits, and jewellery made by Pirinoa people.
Mrs Donges wants to host candle-making workshops and to decorate the store with the artwork of the school children across the road. She dreams that the store won't just be a magnet for Wellington people touring the backroads but the heart of the tiny farming community.
"This area has got nothing. We have got Lake Ferry Hotel but we are Pirinoa not Lake Ferry. We don't have a pub in this village, we don't have anything."
Mrs Donges, a Carterton girl who has spent the past 20 years travelling around Australia, China, and Hungary, came back to Wairarapa two years ago. She noticed the derelict shack at the start of the year and knew she had to get her hands on it.
She was attracted to it as much as a chance to show off her own photography as a way to keep herself busy.
"I didn't want to do a normal job, so of course I made Raymond build me a shop," she said.
The couple approached the owners, Tony and Gay Didsbury, who also own Pirinoa Station.
"It's a big thanks to them to give the community something else, plus they are not charging us any rent," Mr Donges said.
The couple say it might take a year for the store to take off but if the community's energy is anything to go by, it has a chance. "I can see that this is a great investment of my time for now and my energy and my effort because it's going to be something very special," Mrs Donges said.
