Shady Rest undergoes extensive renovation
Dr Bydder’s hospital on Commercial St circa 1940.
The Shady Rest, a former doctor’s residence and private hospital at 139 Commercial St, is now a boutique bed and breakfast, and its owners have now completed its extensive five-year interior renovation.
Mark Taylor almost bought a similar property in Wellington. When that deal fell through in 2002 he came to Golden Bay a bit downhearted, and found the Shady Rest being prepared for auction.
“It was exactly what I was looking for so I bought it,” Mark recalls. “Later on Janice [Quinn] joined me to help with the renovation. It’s been a long haul but the effort and time spent has enhanced the ambience and natural beauty of this lovely old house, as is often remarked on by our guests.”
Janice says that they could have just covered all the internal walls with fire-rated gib board to adhere to all the fire regulations, but it would have ruined the character of the place. So instead they worked from room to room, pulled every bit of match lining off the walls, re-gibbed them and put all the match lining back on top.
The result is that the historic house has been restored to all its former grandeur, with additional modern comforts. It has five double rooms and one single with either ensuites or private bathrooms available to guests.
Mark, a plumber by trade, procured many feature items for the house on working stints back in England, including plush Axminster carpets that now grace the bedrooms. The twelve solar panels he installed on the roof are capable of delivering 35 hot showers every day. A cosy TV lounge and well-equipped kitchen complement the facilities, which also include free broadband, ample off-road parking, a riverside picnic area, guest BBQs, a pizza oven and open fire.
Originally square and smaller in shape, the Shady Rest was built in 1906 as a residence for Dr Ken Woodward, who served as Takaka’s GP until 1930. His house then became the residence of Dr Edward Coventry Bydder, who was born in 1902 and graduated from the Otago University Medical School in 1924. He spent some time at Christchurch and Wellington hospitals before serving as GP at Porirua and Pongaroa in Wairarapa Bush before moving to Golden Bay.
He married Ella Stone and they altered and extended the house by adding a doctor’s surgery and waiting room. With a dormitory ward, it served for some time as the town’s only hospital, its small operating theatre also including a laboratory and dispensary.
Dr Bydder’s son, Percy, once recalled (in an article in The Gazette 21/11/97) how several patients had tracheotomy scars from procedures performed because of diphtheria, all performed without anaesthetics. These were only introduced later to Golden Bay by Dr Andrews of Collingwood.
Sister Lynda Hyland worked with Dr Bydder and had a financial interest in the private hospital. She became well known for her strict adherence to procedural standards, which included “trays covered in starch cloths and matching milk jugs and sugar bowls and freshly baked cakes with icing and almonds on top as well as shortbread to give her patients for afternoon tea.”
As was the custom of the day, she was required to give up her career when she married in 1943.
A trip to Italy during the mid 1930s saw Dr Bydder return with an x-ray machine, a first for the Nelson region, and it was used extensively in the house for a decade. On occasions when x-rays were taken while the picture theatre up town was in operation, the theatre’s arc lamps would fail because of the power surge caused by the x-ray. Eventually the doctor and theatre owner ‘Buzz’ Falconer came to an arrangement that no x-rays would be taken while movies were being screened.
One popular rumour about the hospital was that the woodshed out the back was set up as a “blokes’ clinic” with a permanganate instillation and apparatus set up for the treatment of “unmentionable diseases”. A side door said to have been left open at 7am and 7pm for discreet entry in those pre-antibiotic days.
Many improvements were made to the house over the years, including the installation of mains power and a pressurised water system. When the Bydder children were required to repaint the roof, they literally poured gallons and gallons of the green-pigmented paint onto the iron and spread it out with yard brooms. What residue collected via the drainpipe provided the second coat.
Literally on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week for nearly all of his career, Dr Bydder was awarded an MBE for his services to Golden Bay’s medical scene. He took on Dr Tamsin Hayter as a partner before he retired in the late 1960s and the residence remained a registered hospital until 1970.
After Dr Bydder died in 1976, the property was sold. Hank Finney purchased it in 1986 and converted the home into a backpackers which he called the Shady Rest, a name he got from the 1950s sitcom Petticoat Junction. The latest owners Mark and Janice closed it for several years while they were renovating, renting part of the premises to Outreach drug and alcohol counsellors.
Says Mark: “This house has certainly seen some interesting times over the years. It’s a piece of local history. It’s been an incredibly rewarding project to get it back to all its original splendour.”
Gerard Hindmarsh
