Erskine
Envelope and the Haunted Convent
Everybody loves a good ghost story – and the team at Envelope are no different.
So, when the opportunity came to work on a historic and apparently haunted former convent, the team were up for the challenge.
It was 2016, and Erskine College, a former Catholic girls boarding school, and the Chapel of the Sacred Heart would be project number 10 for the then small and feisty Envelope crew. It was ‘the start of very good things’ as Director Alan Blyde puts it.
The relationship with developers The Wellington Company has gone from strength to strength since then, with innovation and adaptability at the heart of what both do.
The Challenge
The Island Bay site was challenging. Built in 1905 and in use until 1985, the buildings were sad, the Reverend Mother’s Garden hopelessly overgrown, and the heritage chapel had been ruthlessly vandalised. Religious statues had been pushed over, graffiti climbed the walls, and beautiful leadlight windows smashed.
‘A key part of development considerations was to save the chapel – something The Wellington Company was determined to do.’
The Chapel
The chapel was one of the only remaining pieces of French Gothic architecture in New Zealand.
Renowned for its acoustics, it had previously hosted Dame Kiri te Kanawa and the world-renowned Vienna Boys Choir.
It is well-known in Wellington that the site is haunted, and scenes for Peter Jackson’s early hit The Frighteners were filmed at the convent.
Envelope worked hard and worked smart alongside The Wellington Company, and architects from CoLab in Christchurch, with a site which also had steep topography, and drainage and infrastructure capacity problems.
The Results
The result is a well outside the ordinary residential development and includes apartments, contemporary terraced housing, and treehouses which seem to float above the land on their legs.
‘It exceeded everything everyone expected.’ Alan says.
And with the restored chapel and garden nestling back into their rightful positions, hopefully the ghosts of Erskine are at peace in their new home.