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 4 - Just a Little World-Wide Pandemic
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With funding finally secured, major renovations at Casa Nova House are ready to begin—until the world comes to a screeching halt. As Covid-19 sweeps across the globe, Katrina and Brenda find themselves in lockdown, juggling halted progress, limited income, and growing financial pressure.
In this episode, hear how they navigate isolation in a half-renovated mansion, facing uncertainty with grit, humor, and just enough toilet paper—but maybe not enough paint. Will their dream survive a global pandemic?
Casa Nova House - The Journey
