On 22 Feb 1904, aged just 45, James Nairn died from peritonitis, leaving behind his wife Ellen and two children. His untimely death and a subsequent sell-out memorial exhibition at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in April 1904 helped build the mystique of Pumpkin Cottage. Its leader was gone but Pumpkin Cottage lived on. In fact, it thrived as an artists’ retreat

Pumpkin Cottage became nationally popular immediately after Nairn’s death. Impressionists came from all over the country to paint the classic Silverstream scenery and re-live the bohemian life and the cottage was used by successors to the Wellington Art Club. In the 1930s, Nelle Scanlan immortalised Pumpkin Cottage in Winds of Heaven, one of a best-selling series of novels. Joseph Palethorpe painted this watercolour of the Hutt River in 1941.