Homewood Matriarch
2025 update: we have just completed a large redevelopment project on this model that we are absolutely thrilled with, and you can read all about this project here. Some of the photos on this page are now a little out of date, but all specifications and relevant details have been updated (and new videos will finally be coming!), and there has never been a better time to order your Matriarch!
“The Perfect Cooking Station”
Our peerless Homewood Matriarch will suit bigger households, communal living, homestays, restaurants or catering, the marae, people who are passionate about their cooking, or anyone at all who wants an exquisite heirloom stove, built to the highest artisan-crafted standards, making a BIG visual statement in their kitchen.
Like the Homewood Heritage model, our Homewood Matriarch is able to be installed to suit a wide range of preferences and styles: rustic or modern, built in with brick or stone, alongside benches, or looks great freestanding. Get inspired: visit our Gallery page for more photos of real world installations.
Main features: three large ovens; a warming oven; an expanded firebox with increased-capacity water jacket for water heating; expanded cooking surface; attractive cast-iron finish. Lovingly handcrafted here in New Zealand, to the highest standard of quality. Continue reading for full details…
Cooking
The Matriarch is an enthusiastic cook’s dream!
It boasts two massive top ovens at 84 L each (460 mm wide, 370 mm high and 495 mm deep – approx. three cubic feet) with oven panels of heavy cast iron for superior heat retention and even distribution. The oven doors have double-glazed, safety-grade glass windows with external guard-bars that allow for monitoring your baking without having to be always opening the door. They both have an accurate thermometer for reliable temperature reading set into the door, in both Celsius and Fahrenheit, and have six tray positions.
In normal use, the top right oven will sit steady at around 180-220 C, and this temperature can be reached within half an hour to 45 minutes of lighting. The top left oven is an incredibly stable and steady oven, usually at around 160-200 C in normal use. The great thing about the top left oven is that while it takes a little longer than the right oven to come up to temperature, it then holds its heat for a very long time: we’ve seen it still sitting steady even after the fire has turned to little more than embers! This is a perfect oven for cooking those slow, tender roasts that fall apart in your mouth.
The smaller lower oven (right hand side) is still very generous at 53 L (460 mm wide, 235 mm high and 495 mm deep – approx. 1.75 cubic feet), also has a thermometer set into the door, and has four tray positions. This lower oven will normally be sitting in the 140-180 C range, so great for that overflow of slower cooking: puddings and desserts, slow roasts, casseroles and stews!
The Matriarch also has a warming oven on the lower left side with the same generous capacity of the lower oven. This warming compartment is great for keeping things warm, heating crockery before serving, dehydrating fruit or even drying out those saturated winter sport’s boots! It too has a thermometer, and while you will cook little more than meringue or pavlova, it is an option for all day super slow roasting.
The Matriarch is unrivalled in its cooking and warming oven capabilities: this is truly a powerhouse of a cooking stove – with a whopping 274 L capacity!
On the cooktop, this stove has that same wonderful cast iron surface as our Heritage model, with the generous cooking plates offering instant access to variable heat: from boiling, searing and getting things going directly above the fire, and moving right for simmering, slow cooking and keeping things warm. The Matriarch also has an extra mid-heat cooking plate on the left side, for even more cooking surface.
Check out our recipes section for video examples of cooking and baking on a Homewood. While none yet have been filmed showcasing the Matriarch specifically, this is something we intend to rectify before too long.
Operation
At over a metre and a half long and clocking in at more than 700 kg, this is the largest cast-iron cooking stove manufactured in New Zealand since 1927, and is believed to be the single biggest cast-iron woodstove currently in production anywhere, world-wide! It is truly in a class of its own.
All the extra cast iron and refractory brick firebox lining in the Matriarch makes for an incredible heat store – it has tremendous thermal properties, with warmth still being given off well after the fire has died down, or even extinguished!
Check out the Operation section of the Heritage page, as that all applies here too: it has the same three basic stove controls as the Homewood Heritage – with expanded firebox and more sophisticated circulation to drive the extra ovens!
Want to fully get up to speed with running the Matriarch? Download an electronic copy of our Operating Manual and get yourself up to speed!
Specifications
| Total weight: | 750 kg |
| Overall size: | 1650 wide by 900 high by 620 mm deep |
| Top ovens: | 84 L (460 wide, 370 high by 495 mm deep) |
| Lower ovens: | 53 L (460 wide, 235 high by 495 mm deep) |
| Firebox: | 55 L (350 wide by 335 high by 475 mm deep) |
| Firewood: | up to 460 long and 210 mm in diameter |
| Ash pan: | 17 L (245 wide by 170 high by 410 mm long) |
| Flue: | 150 mm diameter, 4.2 m min. length strongly recommended |
| Water jacket: | approximately 5 kW |
| Heat output: | will heat a well-insulated area of up to 175 m2 (12 – 14 kW) |
Full installation specifications available from our downloads page.
Customer Feedback
The perfect cooking station!
It is incredibly easy to light and heats the ovens almost as fast as an electric oven. It is almost too efficient at heating hot water! (We’re considering getting radiators for the winter). It is always still warm in the morning, even when we let it go out the night before. (It is very easy to keep in overnight).
It is ideal to have multiple ovens at different temperatures. At Christmas we cooked two turkeys, a massive ham and a huge tray of roast vegetables all at once, with ease.
An absolute pleasure to use and the centrepiece of our home – we couldn’t be happier with our Homewood Matriarch!
Sam and Pien – Kerikeri
>>>>> …Read more testimonials here!
Having difficulty deciding if this is the Homewood for you? Check out this helpful compare and contrast of our various models!
Ordering
NZD$26,000 + GST; includes stove, stove tools, six oven racks and six oven trays. Does not include freight or flue, or water heating options (as these all vary from house-to-house, see more here).
ORDER NOW – click here for full ordering information.
More information:
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Customer Feedback
Frequently Asked Questions
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