About Us
OUR JOURNEY & WHO WE ARE
The History
From the beginning Seaward Pottery has always been a social place with pottery visitors, accommodation guests plus many friends and family coming to stay. Everyone who came always marvelled at the views and location and how lucky we were to live here. Growing up in this magnificent place meant we had freedom and adventure. We learnt to swim and surf on the rocky beach and spent our youth enjoying the rugged outdoor environment literally on our doorstep. We still treasure our unique upbringing and now want to share it with you.
Pottery was booming in the 80’s and 90’s
This created a great lifestyle for our family and we as kids had lots of opportunities to learn, work and share in the creativity that our mum considered her “trade”. It was a unique upbringing in a super special spot. After the major earthquakes both in Christchurch (2011) and Kaikoura (2016) people were not rushing to buy breakable items. This combined with the increasing popularity of cheap retail imports mum retired from pottery as in her words she “couldn’t compete with $1 mugs from the warehouse”.
A Vision for the Future
The property needed some serious maintenance without anyone living in it for a few years so in 2019 we began to explore our vision to renovate and remodel.
We made sure to keep the character and historical elements that make this home unique and transformed the spaces that were previously a workshop and pottery shop to suit larger groups and families who want amazing spaces to cook, eat, relax and have fun!
The Undertaking
We underestimated the can of worms we were opening with the renovation, a wise friend suggesting it would be cheaper to demolish the house and start again (she was probably right!).Once you have been here you will understand why we didn’t want to. We instead worked hard to modernise the house, fix the annoying things we have lived with growing up such as single glazed windows, crappy showers and dysfunctional kitchen. We then added a huge new deck, an amazing catering kitchen, butlers pantry and equipped the house with all the little things that we know make a holiday that little bit extra special.
The Place
Awaken to the awesome sight of the Seaward mountains and sound of the crashing pacific ocean only a stones-throw away from one of the finest surfing beaches in the South Island of New Zealand.
Only 15km north of Kaikoura (2.5 hours’ drive from Christchurch or 2 hours from Picton). Meat works and Mangamaunu surf breaks are on our doorstep with the mighty Hapuku river running into the ocean only 500 metres away. The township of Kaikoura is an easy 10 minutes’ drive with all the amenities you need or want such as shopping, restaurants, cafés, supermarket. Surfing, diving, fishing, biking, hiking, whale, dolphin and nature tours are some of the many local activities.
Check out our local tourism website for more information…
