Julia Milley - Queenstown’s queen of cat care and art

Queenstown’s queen of cat care and one of the resort’s most renowned art dealers, Invercargill-born Julia Milley has had strong ties with this area since she was four.

By her early 20s, Julia had moved to her beloved Queenstown where she’s been a successful art dealer for 40 years, buying out her boss Barry Wills and taking over Central Art Gallery on the Beach Street waterfront about 1995.

As for her much-needed charity, Queenstown Cat Rescue, Julia’s been loving on her many furry, feline friends since she was a little girl, always a fierce defender of animals and wildlife.

Pity help any kids who chase the waterfront ducks onto the street or kick them – Mama Milley will appear from her gallery with a good telling off. “I love the ducks. They wander into the gallery to the delight of customers.”

A deep love for both art and animals was instilled in Julia by her mother, Marie, who sadly passed away from cancer when she was only 13 – a difficult transition.

When she was four her dad had built a family holiday home in Weaver Street. Just turned 65 on Saturday (9 August), these holiday memories are among her fondest. “We came every weekend and holiday. It felt like home. We’d take empty fizzy bottles to the store and get pennies in return,” she says. “I once picked up a small crate of empty bottles from behind Mrs Lewis’s store in the Mall and went around the front and inside where Mrs Lewis gave me money for them. I felt pretty bad afterward. I was only five,” Julia chuckles.

There were pony rides on the waterfront, and you could buy five chocolate buttons for a cent. “Joan and Gordon McLaren’s little dogs, Honey, Bluey, Ricky, Tiny and Scamp would come running out of their souvenir shop. If I close my eyes, I can still see the town as 1965.”

Her grandmother moved in after her mum died. “But it was never the same.”

Julia was usually missing from class at Southland Girls High. “I spent most of my time in the basement with the wild kittens.”

She was a strong runner at St Paul’s Harriers and loved skiing in Queenstown.

From 16 she worked in Invercargill dairies and stores, including a Fish and Chip shop, before opening her own antique store in South Invercargill at about 21, antiques something her artistic mother also had a great eye for.

She’d already started her own unofficial cat rescue in Invercargill: “At one stage I had 25 cats and the SPCA were telling people to bring them to my house. I couldn’t figure out why all these cats were arriving,” she says.

After moving to Queenstown soon after there were hundreds of stray cats which she always took in, got desexed and fed, well before launching her local Cat Rescue with a couple of friends at the suggestion of a local vet in 2009.

“When I first arrived, I’d pretty much work around the clock from 8am until 10pm at The Mountaineer, later managing the dining room, then night portering – sleeping behind the desk with my daughter Chelsea in a pram.” She did split shifts at the local laundry and dairy and worked for Gus Watson at his Light and Sound Museum and Kiwi Park, then at Annette Thomson’s art gallery.

After working at Central Art Gallery for several years she bought it, building up a reputation and representing a myriad of well-known artists from around New Zealand, all of whom are very supportive of her Cat Rescue work.

“When I first started there were cats and kittens everywhere, in under the old Post office building.”

The district council was pleased to hand over the reins, donating them their first traps.

Since then Queenstown Cat Rescue has rescued and rehomed over 5000 cats. Thousands more have been picked up and reunited with their owners. All strays are vaccinated, micro-chipped, desexed and registered. Lately a generous American benefactor, who was a client in Julia’s gallery, has provided substantial sponsorship for the cause.

“People contact us all the time. A lady found a little kitten in a really bad way the other night on the roundabout turning into Five Mile. We’ve cleaned up that whole area over the years, but the odd one sneaks back in.”

Julia’s watched 34 different gallery owners come and go since she started.

For her it’s all about looking after people and being honest. Renowned for either giving away art or discounting her prices, she says that kindness has more than returned to her. “An Australian guy in his 30s came in recently to tell me I’d given him a print he wanted as a little boy on holiday, and he still looks at it every day.” She may work seven long days a week, but special gems like that are “what it’s all about”.