Michael Wyatt - ‘Drawing’ on that horsepower

Legendary Queenstown award-winning architect Michael Wyatt doesn’t just love drawing. He’s pretty keen on cars, now the proud owner of seven classy classics, including a 1968 4.9-litre V8 Maserati - his “babies”.

In fact, ‘car’ was the first word he uttered from the cot in Temuka in 1947, his dad freshly back from WWII. “I’m told a rotund lady was cycling past and I pointed outside and said, ‘Car!’,” Michael grins.

At 10 they moved to Christchurch where Michael continued his love of making models, more advanced aeroplanes and boats while at Burnside High.

He was realising his creative gift by 15 when he won a radio competition with his illustration of a Deuce Coupe. “I won a Beach Boys record then I had to buy a record player and got into Beatles records.”

Moved up from the trades class due to his intake marks, they didn’t know what to do with him. “It was all about rugby and sport,” he says. “It took six months to persuade the headmaster to let me swap music lessons for art.

“The careers advisor said, ‘Work for the Railways. They won’t sack you’.”

However, an aunt encouraged him into Art School where he studied painting and sculpture at Canterbury Uni, before doing industrial design for a year then passing the rigorous physics test for the School of Architecture in Auckland. Once in, Michael scored straight A’s. About 40 of his 66-strong intake passed, Michael one of just three with Honours.

Not that confident of his ability, he won the drawing prize in his last year and a Queenstown Elizabeth Award for an aircraft museum he designed, building an impressive model.

Graduating in late 1974, by then married to his first wife, Michael worked at Lucking and Vial in Christchurch, an economic slump making him redundant after a year. Thankfully he’d already upgraded the Ford 100 E Prefect for a classy MG Midget by then.

A blast down to Queenstown had him sold, working here for John Blair from 1976.

“I was a bit slow once and he said, ‘Kick it in the guts, Trev!’” Michael grins.

He was granted great freedom, but no hope of a partnership, branching out on his own in 1980. “I earned $10,000 in my first year. I charged $500 for one house job, which should’ve been $2000.”

It was all about earning enough to feed his family until Michael’s historically aesthetic design for the new Arrowtown Library catapulted him to a new level, winning him an Institute of Architecture Award in 1983. “Alan Brady interviewed me for TV’s ‘Town and Around’,” he says. “I agonised over contemporary, or close to an historical feel. I thought my colleagues would think I’d lost the plot, but I opted for something in keeping with the neighbouring Miners’ Cottages.

“It was entirely my choice as long as the Arrowtown Borough Council agreed, which they did,” he says. “They even had advice from a city library expert who said it can’t be on the Village Green as a library should be ‘in the middle of the town centre’,” Michael smiles. “Town was only one block then, but they took it literally.” Thankfully the council ignored that advice.

His Central Otago vernacular architectural style was catching on, Millbrook co-founders John Darby and Graham Smolenski approached him in the early 90s to design Millbrook, initially jointly commissioned with Murray Cockburn. “They asked me to write the design rules, pretty much locking in the look of Millbrook today,” Michael says.

Michael resigned from that and worked for John Davies on The Station Building, leading to a long-term commercial relationship that continues today.

Refurbishment of the rundown Hermitage Hotel, including a new 60-room wing, café restaurant, audio visual theatre and museum, followed, as did the Coronet Peak and Remarkables skifield buildings.

Probably Michael’s largest job is Skyline’s redevelopment – a huge long-term job over five projects, still continuing today.

Along the way in 1994 he married second wife Roz and became stepdad to triplets, adding to his three sons who were living in Australia.

Offroad motorbike riding has been Michael’s saving grace, heading into the hills, hills he was initially introduced to by old friend Jim Childertsone.

He bought a Honda 200cc in 1987 exploring Skippers and Central Otago, gold mining relics and tussocklands up to 1524m (5000 feet).

Their Dunedin holiday house is his seaside escape, two of the classic “babies” garaged there, rotating now and then.

Merging with Mark Gray in 2017, Michael’s largely retired now and took that celebration trip to Italy this year where his favourite 1950s and 60s “babies” were born, Fiats, Alfas, a Lancia and the Masarati.

In the past 10 years Michael has beaten cancer twice, surviving against all medical prognoses. While Roz was understandably upset the night of his first ‘terminal’ diagnosis, Michael went off to bed as calm as a baby. “I said to her, ‘Well, I’m not going to die tonight, and the doctor could be wrong’.” Thankfully he was. “Roz now calls me Lazarus,” he grins.