A Gallery, Gardens & Venue at the historic homestead of Rototawai.
Rototawai is a tranquil landscape & restored homestead located in the rural setting of the southern Wairarapa: a family property made available to the public to enjoy a private collection of art, a unique landscape & an historic home.
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About Rototawai.
Rototawai is administered by the Anna Bidwill Foundation; a charitable trust established by Anna enabling her private Art Collection to be available for the enjoyment of the general public - and for Rototawai to offer guest residencies and host exhibitions of New Zealand Artists in time.
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The Collection.
The development of the Rototawai Collection and refurbishment of the Homestead has been a passion project for Anna Bidwill, ensuring both the Homestead, the park and the collection will be available to the public in perpetuity.
Discover Rototawai this Kings Birthday weekend.
Art, Gardens and Heritage in One Remarkable Place.
For the 30th & 31st of May and 1st of June, Rototawai is open to visitors from 10am–3pm, with no booking required.
Admission: Entry $30pp | Children under 13 & Infants free. For this exclusive weekend, you won't need to book in advance and you’ll only pay entry fees for visitors aged over 13 - the standard minimum entry requirement of $120 per booking is waived for Kings Birthday Weekend.
The admission price allows entry to the Garden gallery, the Homestead gallery and Gardens - where visitors are free to enjoy a self-guided tour.
What to do when you visit Rototawai…
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The Garden gallery is currently showing works from 3 private collections – which all focus on New Zealand art.
Works have been kindly loaned from the Woolstore Collection, the Stevenson Collection, and are hung alongside new works from the Anna Bidwill collection that are not part of the permanent collection on display in the homestead gallery at Rototāwai.The standing Collection is housed in the Rototāwai Homestead and hung in the main rooms on the ground floor. The Collection is recognised as a significant group of works (painting and sculpture) by established contemporary New Zealand Artists.
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The park and gardens at Rototāwai have been re-developed by renowned landscape designer Ross Palmer. The Homestead gardens have been expanded and are designed to be sustainable – featuring informal beds of resilient planting with very low water needs.
Self guided walks are encouraged, maps of the walking paths and feature planting are available free for visitors.
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In 1928 the timber homestead at Rototāwai was destroyed by fire. The owner, W E Bidwill, commissioned Stanley Fearn to design the present house. Plans were prepared in April 1928 and the house was completed in July 1929. Rototāwai is regarded as a valuable statement of his own personal interpretation of the English neo-Georgian theme in domestic architecture.
The Rototāwai estate consists of 8 hectares of magnificent gardens, historic trees and lake frontage. Birdlife in the park is abundant – the lake has ducks in season, and a resident bevy of black swans.
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As you tour the gallery and homestead at Rototāwai, you will encounter architectural details, references to family history and stark reminders about how different farming and family life were in the 1800’s and early 1900’s.
The first of the Bidwill family to arrive in Aotearoa was John Carne Bidwill (1815 - 1853) – who was an English botanist who documented plant life in New Zealand and Australia. He is attributed with the discovery of several Australasian plant species – including Araucaria bidwillii.
