It's where she stayed for 21 years, re-inventing herself as a glass artist and getting heavily involved in local theatre.
Ellett enrolled in a foundation arts course at the old polytech which she juggled with motherhood shortly after arriving in the city.
At tech she discovered the art of glass blowing or as she called it, "the magic show".
Karen Ellett called glass blowing 'the magic show'.
It became her profession for the next decade or so and alongside Lyndsay Patterson and Katie Brown she helped found Chronicle Glass on Rutland St, the facility which is now New Zealand Glassworks.
In Whanganui Ellett was also drawn to theatre, acting in dozens of local productions, always in the back of her head wondering what it would be like to do professionally.
Her break was getting into The Actors' Program, an intensive one-year training programme with people in the industry, in 2016.
So she left Whanganui after 21 years to pursue another dream.
She loved it and succeeded.
Karen Ellett left Whanganui in 2016 to pursue an acting career. Photo/ Bevan Conley
In the less the two years since she graduated she has picked up many professional roles.
She was involved in the post-course production Vernon God Little, acted in a Shakespeare-with-a-twist-show As you like it and was in the Pop Up Globe's production of Julius Caesar.
Just this month Ellett was a backup dancer in a yet to be released Ladi6 music video.
She wrote on Facebook: "Omg, getting hair and makeup done for Ladi6 video shoot I'm lucky enough to be in today! Much gratitude and excitement universe."
It was friend Vanessa Edwards who noted this week that Ellett had an incredible way of achieving this reinvention "over and over again".
"She should have had several more lives in her."
Ellett's funeral will be held at Cleveland Chapel on Friday, April 20 at 1pm.
A Karen Ellett memorial fund to cover funeral costs and create a small fund for her daughter has been set up at https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/karen-elletts-memorial-fund
