Our Story

The Hone Tuwhare Char­i­ta­ble Trust was estab­lished in 2010 with a vision to:

Inspire people through the preservation, promotion and celebration of Hone Tuwhare’ s legacy.

Between 2010 and 2022, the Trust’s pri­ma­ry focus was the pur­chase and restora­tion of Hone’s crib for the pur­pose of the devel­op­ment of a Hone Tuwhare Res­i­den­cy programme.

The main project of the Trust for more than a decade has been the restora­tion of Hone’s crib, under­tak­en in 3 main work stages. The cre­ation of the Tuwhare Res­i­den­cy pro­gramme is stage 4 of the Trust’s work plan and is now the pri­ma­ry focus of the Trust.

Stage One: Research & Plan­ning 2012

A Con­ser­va­tion Report and a Fea­si­bil­i­ty Study were com­plet­ed. This work pro­vid­ed the Trust with a restora­tion plan under­pinned by her­itage and kau­pa­pa Maori val­ues. Ensur­ing a sym­pa­thet­ic restora­tion while main­tain­ing the mau­ri of the whare remained cen­tral to the project.

 Stage Two: Fund­ing & Com­mu­ni­ty Engage­ment 2012–2014

A fund­ing strat­e­gy was devel­oped. Detailed plan­ning & engage­ment occurred with Kai Tahu mana when­ua, Kaka Point locals, local busi­ness­es, Clutha Dis­trict Coun­cil, Dunedin City Coun­cil, Ota­go Region­al Coun­cil, Ota­go Uni­ver­si­ty, the Hock­en Library, Dunedin Pub­lic Art Gallery, Dunedin UNESCO City of Lit­er­a­ture, archi­tects, spe­cial­ist builders, earth­works con­trac­tors and local advisors.

Stage Three: Restora­tion of the Tuwhare Crib 2012–2022

An exten­sive restora­tion and rebuild of the crib and site were under­tak­en to cre­ate a warm, weath­er tight and com­fort­able crib. The project:

• Restored the look and feel of Hone’s orig­i­nal crib.
• Restored Hone’s writ­ing shed, as a sound­proof stu­dio and writ­ing space with addi­tion­al sleep­ing space.
• Retained front of sec­tion, linked the crib to mains sewage and water, improved drainage, con­cret­ed the dri­ve­way and installed gates.

 Stage Four: Estab­lish­ment of the Tuwhare Res­i­den­cy Pro­gramme 2022-

Plan­ning for the Tuwhare residency:

• Deter­min­ing the struc­ture of the res­i­den­cy pro­gramme and the lev­el of fund­ing and resourc­ing required to sup­port a res­i­den­cy programme.
• Deep­en­ing the Trust’s net­works, rela­tion­ships and oppor­tu­ni­ties for partnership.
• Pilot res­i­den­cy and devel­op­men­tal approach to cre­at­ing the foun­da­tion­al res­i­den­cy programme.