The Giants House, Akaroa NZ

What a explosion of your senses…. it truly has to be seen to be believed.

Have you heard about the Giants House?

We hadn’t until we stumbled upon Akaroa and then it became a must see.

The quirky, artistic garden is breathtaking.

Understandably it has been a Garden of Significance since 2012 and an International Garden of Significance since last year.

It is easy to see why. It is a culmination of love, artistic talent and certainly is unique.

The sculpture mosaic garden is a contemporary garden which was called the Giants House initially by a small girl who was looking up at it from the valley below where it sits and said it was so big that it must be the house of a giant….hence the birth of the name.

The house that the mosaic garden surrounds is steeped in history as it was originally built in 1880. The first owner was the first Bank of NZ manager who had arrived from England. The house was built of hardwoods (both Totara and Kauri) milled in the local Banks Peninsula. The most magnificent part of the house is the mahogany staircase which was imported from France and then reassembled in the grand entrance hall. It definitely makes a statement! (you can view from the front porch as touring the house itself is not a part of the garden admission price).

The house required restoration to what it is today and is not something that you tour through when you visit the mosaic garden, as it is the home of artist, Josie Martin. Josie has lived there for 22 years and has been consistently working on her work of art mosaic garden for 18 years.

Originally there was no garden at all at the house, so it posed as a blank canvas. She designed the garden and has completed most of the works herself. When she first started to design and make a garden she found shards of lovely old china in the ground which had been buried. This would have been as back in the houses early history there would have been no garbage collection, so it was the norm to bury it. The finding of the lovely old china was too beautiful to throw away and as she dug and planted in her garden she found more and kept collecting it as it felt to her as it was a part of the house.

Initially Josie tried her hand at mosaic on the front step area with the pieces she had collected, along with some other tiles she had collected during her travels. Once this was completed it just went on from there……
The installations in the garden grew and evolved and she has enlisted some local craftsman over the years to assist although the design and works on the sculptures is all Josie’s handiwork.

As it is still a house as well, the opening hours are shorter than you would expect of a tourist attraction. From May- September it is open 11 am – 2 pm and outside of those months slightly longer open till 4 pm.

For a family of 2 adults and 2 children to visit was $50. We took about 1 hour to see it all and take in all the detail.

It unfortunately is not wheel chair accessible in any way.

For more information visit http://www.thegiantshouse.co.nz