The Last Resort
The Last Resort
Follow the wild, inspiring, and sometimes chaotic restoration journey of Katrina McLarin and her wife, Brenda Laverick, as they bring Casa Nova House — a magnificent 1861 Oamaru Stone mansion in New Zealand’s South Island — back to life.
What began as a bold decision to buy a historic home soon became something much bigger: a hands-on adventure filled with restoration challenges, unexpected discoveries, big dreams, financial realities, laughter, frustration, and more than a few surprises along the way.
The Last Resort takes you behind the scenes of what it really means to restore and reinvent a heritage property when there’s no instruction manual and no guarantee that everything will go according to plan.
From uncovering the history hidden within the walls to navigating renovations, business ideas, relationships, setbacks and triumphs, Katrina and Brenda share the real story — the good, the bad, and the completely unexpected.
If you love historic homes, renovation adventures, New Zealand heritage, entrepreneurial stories, or tales of people taking a chance on something extraordinary, The Last Resort is for you.
The Last Resort
Ep 3 - Exploding Radiators
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Expect the unexpected—now a daily mantra in the early stages of restoring Casa Nova House. In the dead of winter, with freezing temperatures and no heating, Katrina and Brenda brave the elements to begin breathing life back into this once-grand old lady.
This episode dives into the gritty reality of heritage repairs, the surprises hidden behind old walls, and the determination it takes to turn a crumbling mansion into a future masterpiece—one cold day at a time.
Casa Nova House - The Journey
