The Willows Craft Cottage in Harihari is a relocated timber cottage with historic significance for its association with the Hende family, pioneering settlers in the district.

Danish brothers, Johann Peter Hende and Jens Jensen Hende, arrived in New Zealand in circa 1870 after almost a decade working on the gold fields in Australia. Shortly after setting up a ferry service on Westland’s Wanganui River in 1872, the two brothers disagreed over a contract and ceased to work together. The family feud ran for many years. Some time between 1879 and 1884, Jens Hende and his close friend, William Henry Green, built a shingle-roofed pit-sawn totara cottage with three bedrooms and a large kitchen. Jens planted weeping willows around the house’s section and soon the area was called the Willows. In 1885 Jens married Green’s niece, Josephine Mary Anne Bathmaker, and they had a family together. Tragically, in 1900, Jens was killed in a riding accident. In 1905 Green moved into the Willows and built another cottage, evidently behind the original, to house Josephine and the six children.

Constructed using vertically set timbers and now with a corrugated iron roof, this one and a half storeyed cottage is rectangular in plan. It has a steeply pitched gable roof leading to a shallower pitch verandah roof supported by six timber posts. The main entrance, fronting the north side of the state highway in its relocated position, is through a centrally placed door, flanked on either side by two sash windows. These windows contain timber mullions and transoms holding small panes of glass. On the interior, wide floorboards indicate the original depth of the cottage.

Josephine Hende provided accommodation to travellers, including stabling for their horses, and, at times, both the original cottage and the later 1905 house were full. Johan Peter Hende’s son, Carl Hende, owned a saw mill in the area, and he had financed the purchase of this land for the widow Josephine. However, she could not meet the mortgage repayments and was forced to sell. In 1911 Carl Hende took over the property, including the two cottages. One of the cottages was largely dismantled in 1915 then added to by Carl Hende when he started a store. By the early 1980s, the cottage that was originally shingled had been in use as a garage and was under threat of demolition. In 1985, to save it from demolition, this back cottage was moved from the Willows property to the Harihari township, approximately three kilometres south of its original location. Renamed the Willows Craft Cottage, the relocated cottage has retained much of its original appearance at the front but at the rear it has undergone a number of changes. In 1986 the north facing part of the roof had new corrugated steel added. In circa 1990 most of the rear wall was removed and a single-storeyed rectangular wing was added perpendicular to the original cottage. In 2014 the south-facing front part of the roof was replaced with new corrugated steel.