Former tourist venue Holly Lodge won't be moving far when Papaiti Rd is re-aligned.
The road, at a point about 8km from central Wanganui, is to be moved westward to get further from the eroding bank of the Whanganui River. Wanganui District Council has now negotiated to purchase most of the
property necessary to move it. As part of the process three houses and a woolshed have been sold by tender for removal, and two pieces of land have been sold by tender, one of them with sheds.
One of the houses is Holly Lodge, built in the early 1900s and the base for a thriving tourist business in the 1980s. Wanganui District Council property officer Dougall McIntyre said a total of $486,000 was tendered for the six pieces of property.
The successful tenderer for Holly Lodge was Blair Watson, a relative of one of the former owners. He planned to move the house just round the corner to Waireka Rd.
"People will be absolutely rapt in that," Mr McIntyre said.
The former Vinsen house was bought by a purchaser from outsaide of Wanganui and would be moved to Waikanae. The successful tenderer for the old woolshed next to it planned to keep it in the Wanganui area or shift it to Maxwell. The former Patchett house was to be moved to a block of land in the Turakina Valley and the two pieces of land were both bought by people from the Wanganui district.
