Napier man recounts fleeing home with family before painstakingly restored villa hit by landslide

November 11, 2020

White had only just gone through a process of restoring the home.

Napier landscape artist Freeman White's restored villa on Hospital Hill was hit by a landslide on Monday- and he says he's lucky to be alive.

White moved to Napier from Wellington nine years ago, and purchased a run-down villa overlooking Napier CBD.

He painstakingly and loving restored the 1800s home into a comfortable family residence.

On Monday night, he was up a ladder trying to clear out his gutters as the torrential rain got worse and worse.

As he worked, a landslide slammed into his home - right outside the bathroom where his two-year-old daughter Bella was in the bath.

White said he was able to free the ladder from the mud and debris, and move it to the other side of the roof to get down.

The family have now evacuated, but hope to fix the damage after the damage is assessed.

"You could say I deal with landscape quite a lot in my line of work, but this kind of thing is a bit out of my area of expertise," he told Breakfast this morning.

"The house started flooding from the back so I took upon myself to get up on a ladder and clear the gutters that had some leaves in.

"I set foot on the top of the roof in time to turn around and see the entire bank in slow motion - it felt like it was in a film - it just came down.

"We just got out of here as fast as we could - it all happened so quickly.

"Hopefully the assessment will come through that we can start to remediate some of the damage.

"We've been looked after so well, the neighbours have been incredible, we've had so much support, I just want to say thanks to everyone who has helped us out so far."

White said he's not letting the setback get in the way of his art - he'll continue exhibiting at Sanderson Contemporary in Auckland, and he has art going into the upcoming Auckland Art Fair on February 24-28.

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