Tenterfield heritage listed home facing demolition

Local resident Craig Smith purchased the property opposite the showground late last year, and said he had initially intended to keep the building.

But after he had bought it he discovered the deteriorating state of the premises when a building inspection informed him that restoring the old home would not be an option.

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"We had no interest in pulling it down, we were going to restore it," Craig said.

"But it's in a very sad state, it's structurally unsound."

Tenterfield Shire Council is now working collaboratively with the owner and builder and they expect that a development application will be lodged shortly for assessment.

Under normal circumstances Craig said it would be almost impossible to pull down a home that was heritage listed, and admitted it would be a controversial move.

"Even if I built a carbon copy, it's still not the original one that was built in the 1850s," he said.

But he said the state of the premises had left them with no alternative.

Craig said some walls had already fallen down, and he described it as sheer luck that the home was still standing after deteriorating in recent years.

When the property came up for auction last year, Craig said he never went inside the premises after being warned about the danger the building posed.

"All I could do was look from the road," he said.

"It was only after I bought the place that I realised how destroyed it really was."

Several meetings followed with Tenterfield Shire Council and heritage consultants before tacit approval was granted to demolish the heritage-listed home.

"We've got to do as many drawings as we can," Craig explained, "and we have to rebuild the house on the exact footprint that the old one is."

There will also be heaps of photographs taken of the current structure before a report is handed to the council to grant approval for demolition.

If the 160-plus year-old home is demolished, a concrete slab will be laid and work will commence on the replacement, which Craig said would resemble the original home as closely as possible.

He said that was better than the alternative.

"If they don't allow us to pull it down, we'll have to let nature take its course and it will fall down," he said.

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