Case study / Residential / Queenstown
Hidden Lodge.
Fernhill, Queenstown. Luxury lodge. Exterior repaint, roof, decks, balconies, and interior lounge.
Hidden Lodge sits above Fernhill, where the light moves across an alpine valley and a building's exterior has to hold up to a kind of scrutiny that suburban houses rarely face. We worked on the lodge in October 2018: a full exterior repaint, the roof, the decks, the balconies, and the indoor lounge area. The lodge is a luxury accommodation business, which means the finish standard is residential in care and hospitality in durability. Both at once.
The brief.
The owners wanted Hidden Lodge brought back to the standard it had been built to, and the standard guests expected. Exterior coats had earned their service life. The roof, decks, and balconies were taking the full weight of Queenstown's seasons. The interior lounge, a space that anchors the guest experience, needed a refresh that respected the rest of the lodge's character.
Three constraints shaped the work. First, the operational rhythm of a luxury lodge: guests are on the property year-round, and a full repaint cannot disturb the experience that is the lodge's whole business. Second, the Queenstown exterior window: reliable exterior painting in the Wakatipu is three to four months, and the programme had to land inside it. Third, the architecture: a lodge with long sightlines and detail that reads from across the valley, where the prep depth on a single elevation determines how the building reads for the next decade.
The work.
We walked the lodge with Claudia Bartsch, the general manager, before specifying anything. The first conversation set the standard, the scope, and the order of work. The second walked colour and finish: what each space asked for, what would hold up to guests, where the existing palette earned its keep and where it did not.
The exterior was prepped to the substrate. Wash, scrape, sand, fill, prime bare timber, seal end-grain on every elevation. We re-detailed where original detailing had begun to soften. The roof system was coated to a programme suited to Fernhill exposure. Decks and balconies were treated as the working surfaces they are: prep down to a tight base, system specified for foot traffic and weather. Hand-cut detail at the junctions where roof met wall, deck met cladding, balcony rail met post.
Scheduling worked around the lodge's operating calendar. The crew arrived consistently, the same faces every morning, and the noisier work landed in windows agreed with the lodge manager. Daily clean-down before the crew left. Guest spaces were left in operating condition at the end of each day, not at the end of the week.
The interior lounge ran on a tighter sequence. Sheets down. Skirtings and reveals masked and hand-cut. Walls cut in, rolled, and back-cut. The ceiling rolled and checked under raking light. The work flowed in and out of guest hours so the lounge stayed a lounge rather than a building site.
The communication across the project was the part Claudia commented on later. Approachable, flexible, present. That is the part of a luxury lodge programme that a coating system cannot deliver. The system delivers the finish. The people deliver the experience of the finish being applied.
The finish.
The exterior reads clean from the road and from the valley. The roof, decks, and balconies are sealed and detailed to their function. The interior lounge holds the standard guests expect when they arrive: a room that does not look repainted, just well-kept. The lodge is still in operation, the finish is holding, and the standard the owners asked for is the standard that is there.
We are very satisfied with the professional work ethic, quality and passion Finesse has delivered throughout the project. Peter has been very approachable, flexible and communicative at all times and I, as the General Manager, enjoyed working with him and his team. We can only recommend Finesse and their services.
Claudia Bartsch, Hidden Lodge Queenstown
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