Obituary: Laurie Hovenden
Go-getter town butcher, publican, county councillor, motelier and restauranteur, keen whitebaiter, hunter and fisherman, husband to Heather, father of Ian and Stuart, humorous and hard-case mate to many.
That’s just a few descriptions that fitted Laurie Hovenden of Takaka, who passed away on July 15 after a short illness, one day after his 76th birthday.
Born and raised in Motueka, the son of Thomas and Grace Hovenden, Laurie didn’t really get to know his dad as he died when Laurie was just four. Laurie’s mother was a Goodman, a sister to Ledger, who started the Goodman’s Bakery that would later be propelled to corporate fame as Goodman Fielder Wattie by his sons Pat and Peter.
Laurie attended Parklands School before leaving at the age of 14 to train as a butcher and slaughterman under Doug Lummis of Lummis Brothers’ Butchery. Later he switched to work for the opposition, CFL Butchery on High Street, run by Doug’s brother, Clary Lummis.
Local tobacco worker Heather Graves was only 19 when she married Laurie, who was then three years older than her. Laurie worked at CFL until 1970, when he left to manage a chicken-processing plant for Roger Paynter at Tasman. He eventually purchased the business in co-operation with businessmen Peter Talley, Bill Coman and Ian McWhannel, and they continued to run the plant until 1973 when publican Bill Small phoned Laurie and offered him the lease on the Globe Hotel, now the River Inn, at Waitapu near Takaka.
This offer came about as a result of Laurie’s family’s “legendary trips” out to the Anatori, where Laurie had been visiting since the mid-1950s because he knew Vic Win, then owner of Anatori Station.
“Those trips out there might be more correctly described as a pub crawl in an old Land Rover, the last port of call always being the Globe Hotel,” Laurie’s son Ian jokingly recalls. On a number of these stop-offs, Laurie had said to its publican, Bill Small: “If you are ever looking at getting out, make sure you give me the right of first refusal.” Bill never forgot.
As a result, on Labour Weekend in 1973, Laurie and Heather moved from Motueka into the Globe Hotel to begin the first of two stints as lessees and managers there. They ran it until 1976, when Bob Copp, who had purchased Central Takaka Butchery from Dave Croawell, decided to leave. Laurie and Heather carefully considered the opportunity then went ahead and bought it, and within three years the opposition Smith and Tait butchery as well. This gave them three butchery outlet shops in the Bay – at Central Takaka, Motupipi, and Commercial Street, the latter situated just next to the old Reynish’s Supermarket.
In 1981 Laurie was elected as a Golden Bay County Councillor after a lot of prodding from Bob Taylor and Rodney Nees. It was a colourful time in local politics, Laurie’s single three-year term coinciding with a big influx of new arrivals to the Bay.
In the mid 1980s the Hovendens decided to expand the abattoir at Kotinga into a bulk processing plant. It was soon employing up to 30 people, processing sheep and cattle. However, the share market crash at the end of 1987 hit them hard. Export orders were cancelled and it became necessary to split that business between a number of owners.
Laurie and Heather moved back into the Globe for a second stint as managers, and stayed until 1990. Their next entrepreneurial move was to buy the Marina Motels at Pohara, then just accommodation units. Perhaps the first to see the potential of the then relatively quiet Pohara, they expanded the motel by adding a restaurant and a bar, turning the complex into what it is today.
Laurie and Heather moved into a house in Commercial Street, Takaka in 1996, but Laurie never really considered that he had ever retired, rather that he just got on with everything that needed doing.
Since 1999, Laurie had made it his habit to help out Dave Harwood on his Turimawiwi farm, never missing a muster and contributing with all his skills—from yarding stock to keeping the knives sharp. His presence out there will certainly be sadly missed, as the pair were great mates. It was Laurie’s wish that his family and best mates spread his ashes out at the Turimawiwi, at his old whitebaiting and hunting spot that he loved and where he spent large amounts of his spare time over the years. That is being planned for early September.
Laurie is survived by his wife of 53 years, Heather, and their two sons, Ian, an IT manager in Auckland, and Stuart, who drives for Sollys in Takaka.
Gerard Hindmarsh
