Waiau Lodge Hotel Photo: Supplied
The Waiau Lodge Hotel in North Canterbury has been gutted in an overnight fire.
Fire and Emergency were called to the blaze on Lyndon Street in Waiau just after midnight on Saturday.
The lodge was built in 1910.
Owner Michelle Beri tearfully told Chris Lynch “everything is gone. We stored everything in the lodge, we’re screwed.”
Ms Beri said she managed to raise enough funds to get asbestos removed from the lodge.
She said “someone has torched the house – there’s no way it’s happened by itself because it’s had no power since the 2016 earthquake.”
Waiau Lodge Hotel before the fire Photo: Facebook
“If they were trying to help us, then they have screwed us because everything we have left was in that hotel. We packed our stuff in there and it’s all gone.”
Ms Beri said she was currently live in a shed.
“I don’t even want to think about it, because we also store things from the tavern, and it’s hard to think about what has all gone.”
She said the tavern was not damaged and was hoping to open it this afternoon.
Photo after the fire: Supplied
“We had a few quotes to get the lodge restored, then we were looking at possible demolition of the grand lady which is her nickname.”
Ms Beri was due to head to council this week to discuss options for the lodge.
“I know there’s going to be a lot of talk, just like when other pubs get burnt down, it was done for this purpose, or that purpose, but we’ve lost everything we had stored up from the earthquakes, including valuables owned by my step-dad.”
A fire investigator from Christchurch was heading to the scene today.
