Historic Home Brought Her to Tears Before Stepping Inside

Susan Smith pulled up to the historic house in West Melton and started crying before she even opened the car door.

"I thought, this is home, and I hadn't even stepped inside the house," Susan remembers. The Canterbury estate called Lawford, hidden up a long driveway and wrapped in massive old trees, stole her heart instantly in 1999.

The property's story stretches back to 1863, though the current home was built around 1900. Its colorful history includes ownership by Sir Basel Purvis Russell Hamilton William Montgomery, who later became a Scottish earl.

For nearly three decades, Susan and her husband Graeme have cherished every corner of their 7.6-hectare estate. They raised three children here and welcomed six grandchildren among the redwoods, oaks, and hundreds of white-blossoming plum trees.

The 2011 Christchurch earthquakes tested their love for Lawford. All six chimneys collapsed, with a ton of bricks crashing into their bedroom and narrowly missing their bed.

"We were so thankful that it was a very large bedroom," says Graeme. They spent three years rebuilding, living in the working woolshed while restoring eight fireplaces and repairing a cherub-painted ceiling fresco.

During restoration, workers wanted to destroy the imposing entrance fireplace. "We jumped up and down madly and said, 'Sorry, no, you've got to save it,'" Susan recalls.

The couple won that battle, preserving the terracotta masterpiece from England that looks like carved wood.

Sunny's Take

After the earthquakes, Montgomery's elderly daughter called from Hamilton, terrified her childhood home had been destroyed. Susan and the former owner formed a beautiful friendship through letters and phone calls, sharing stories about the house they both adored.

Now, with their family grown and living overseas, the Smiths are ready to travel and spend more time with their grandchildren. They hope the next owners will fall just as deeply in love with the estate's piano room, sunroom with dropping sash windows, and park-like grounds.

"This house steals your heart," Susan says simply, and she's living proof it does exactly that.