Premier House

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Premier House
File:Premier House, Wellington 3.jpg
Premier House at an open day in 2015
General information
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Address 260 Tinakori Road, Thorndon
Town or city Wellington
Country New Zealand
Owner New Zealand Government
Renovating team
Architect Grant Group Architects
Renovating firm L.T. McGuinness Construction
Designated 24 March 1988
Reference no. 1371

Premier House, at 260 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand, is the official residence of the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

A private house purchased for the Prime Minister's official residence when government shifted its base to Wellington in 1865, it was first greatly expanded then, as its wooden structure deteriorated, shunned by the more modest political leaders on learning the cost of repairs.

It was leased to private individuals for six years in the late 1890s then returned to use as an official residence for the Prime Minister until the Great Depression when a new government in 1935 wished to avoid "show".

For more than half a century generations of children came to know the building as their Dental Clinic until it was renovated and recommissioned as Premier House in 1990.

History

Construction

The original house was built in the early days of the New Zealand colony in 1843 for Wellington's first Mayor, George Hunter. This house, or at least a portion of it, is still located at the southern end of the current building. It has been greatly expanded over the years. Later the residence of Nathaniel Levin the house was bought for use by the country's Premier in 1865. A Wellington newspaper, elated by the city’s new status, thought the £2900 price "cheap". An Auckland paper called it a "monstrous waste of public money".

Official residents

  • 1864–1865 : Hon Sir Frederick Weld, 6th Premier[1][note 1]
  • 1865–1869 : Hon Sir Edward Stafford, 3rd Premier[2]
  • 1869–1873 : Hon Sir William Fox, 2nd Premier
  • 1873–1875 : Hon Sir Julius Vogel, 8th Premier. The house changed little until Julius Vogel and his wife, Mary, arrived in 1873.[3] Within a year they had turned it into an eight-bedroom mansion complete with conservatory and ballroom. The grounds featured what is thought to have been the country's first tennis court.[4] The Vogels were noted for their lavish entertaining resulting in the house acquiring the nickname of "The Casino".
(1875–1876 : Hon Dr Daniel Pollen, 9th Premier for 7 months)
(1877–1879 : Hon Sir George Grey, 11th Premier)
  • 1879–1882 : Hon Sir John Hall, 12th Premier
  • 1882–1883 : Hon Sir Frederick Whitaker, 5th Premier
  • 1883–1884 : Hon Sir Harry Atkinson, 10th Premier
  • 1884–1887 : Hon Sir Julius Vogel as a cabinet minister in the government of Hon Sir Robert Stout, 13th Premier[6][7] More extensions were made to the house due to Vogel's poor health. His recurring gout resulted in an extra office being added for Cabinet meetings and in 1886 the construction of New Zealand's first lift.
The country entered a Depression in the late 1880s and after the Vogels moved out, the new government tried to sell the property. MPs’ salaries had been cut, and the Liberal ministers of the 1890s had to live cheaply. But the press and public fought back. Wellington people valued its spacious grounds as a public amenity. Only the furniture was sold. Some suggested turning the site into an old men’s home or a university, but it stayed empty.
(1893–1906 : Rt Hon Richard John Seddon, 15th Premier. Following Ballance's death Seddon remained in his modest ministerial residence at 47 Molesworth Street and the Tinakori Street residence was leased out from 1895 to 1900 when it became a ministerial residence again.)
Tenants
1893–1895 apparently vacant[7]
1895–1899 : Sir Walter Buller, lawyer and ornithologist.
1899–1899 : Percy Smith, surveyor general and secretary for lands and mines and ethnologist.
Official residents
Joseph, later Sir Joseph Ward Baronet, and his family at Awarua 1906
  • 1900–1912 : Rt Hon Sir Joseph Ward Bt, as a cabinet minister[7] then Prime Minister from 1906. Now called Awarua, the name of Ward's electorate,[7] the house again became one of the capital's main social places, hosting many formal and informal parties, especially after Ward became Prime Minister following Seddon's death in 1906. One party of particular note was the farewell party given by Miss Eileen Ward, daughter of Sir Joseph Ward, to farewell near neighbour Katherine Mansfield a few days before she left New Zealand for the last time in 1908.
  • 1912–1925 : Rt Hon William F Massey,[7] Prime Minister renamed it Ariki Toa, ‘home of the chief’. During the First World War the Masseys used it for patriotic activities.
  • 1925–1928 : Rt Hon J Gordon Coates, Prime Minister. The last Prime Minister to live there.[7] Further extensions were made to the building in 1926 when Gordon Coates lived there including rebuilding the conservatory and adding an enclosed veranda above it but major maintenance work seems to have been deferred again.
  • 1928–1935 : Rt Hon George Forbes, Prime Minister lived in a flat at Parliament House. Parts of Premier House's floor had subsided up to 30 cm. The ground floor was occupied by the Unemployed and Transport Departments and the upper floor as a ministerial residence by the families of Mr Masters, a former leader of the Legislative Council and Minister of Public Works, Mr Ransom.[8] Following a number of parliamentary debates it was decided by popular demand to not subdivide the land or build Ministerial flats on the grounds.[7][9] The garden continued to be the location of subscription garden parties raising funds for major charities like YWCA and Girl Guides.[10]

Dental clinic

In 1935 Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage faced with rebuilding the Country's economy in the midst of the Great Depression lived in Seddon's former residence at 47 Molesworth Street later purchasing a house high in Northland. Premier House was turned into a school for dental nurses and a children's dental clinic with 40 later 50 chairs.[11] At the time Mr Langstone, the Minister of Lands, was living there and a new house was built for him in the grounds on the site of the stable.[7] During the war the garden grew vegetables for the forces Service Clubs.[12]

Restoration

File:Premier House, Wellington 1.jpg
Premier House in 2015

By the 1980s after many years of institutional use the building was in a battered state. It was rescued from this decline by Dr Michael Bassett, Minister of Internal Affairs, who initiated moves for the restoration of the building to its early grandeur.

The restoration was undertaken by Auckland's Grant Group Architects and L.T. McGuinness Construction between December 1989 and 1991. Considerable slumping had occurred over the years so the building had to be brought into square and levelled. Walls were stripped, straightened and re-lined, and old fire-damaged and rotten timbers were cut out and replaced. Old finishing timbers were replaced with timber cut to an identical profile. A new fire sprinkler system, heating and air conditioning systems were installed along with a new hydraulic lift.

Since May 1990 it has again been the Prime Minister's official residence when in the capital. The new decor includes a considerable collection of New Zealand art both old and new. The interior decoration, while carefully reproducing many missing original features, does not resemble or evoke a 19th-century house in any way. The pale colour scheme, for example, is perhaps best described as inoffensive.

The conservation of Premier House, as it was renamed, was a 1990 Sesquicentennial project. That year Geoffrey Palmer and his wife, Margaret, became its first official residents.

Official residents continued

Value

The property has a land area of 1.5 hectares (14,569 square metres) and a rateable value (in 2012) of NZ$13,800,000.[13]

Other official residences

64-66 Harbour View Road

From 1939 Michael Joseph Savage (until 1939 at 47 Molesworth Street) lived in a house “Hill Haven” at 64-66 Harbour View Road, Northland, Wellington, which was subsequently used by his successor Peter Fraser until 1949. It was purchased for Michael Joseph Savage "because it is now not necessary (to be within easy walking distance of Parliament) and a Prime Minister is no longer bound to the lowly areas of the Thorndon flats".[14][15]

41 Pipitea Street

From 1950 Sidney Holland lived at No 41 Pipitea Street, Thorndon. The house was subsequently used by Walter Nash, Keith Holyoake and Geoffrey Palmer, and as a ministerial residence by Jim Sutton and Nick Smith. The house was also used for the Pacific Island Affairs Ministry.[16]

Vogel House

From 1976 to 1990 Vogel House in Lower Hutt was the official residence of the prime minister. It was used by Robert Muldoon and others.

Notes

  1. ↑ "Official Residence. We understand, says the Independent of the 14th inst., that the Government have completed the purchase of the house and grounds formerly the property of N. Levien, Esq., situated on the Tinakori road, for the sum of £2,950. It will now be the official residence of the Hon. F. A. Weld." Hawkes Bay Herald

References

  1. ↑ Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 8, Issue 586, 18 March 1865, Page 2
  2. ↑ Wellington Independent, Volume XXI, Issue 2482, 19 February 1867, Page 3
  3. ↑ Editorial, Evening Post, Volume IX, Issue 78, 14 May 1873, Page 2
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Arrival of Sir Julius Vogel. Evening Post, Volume XIII, Issue 35, 11 February 1876, Page 2
  6. ↑ Political. Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1322, 8 October 1884, Page 2
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 Home of Premiers. Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 131, 4 June 1937, Page 7
  8. ↑ General News. Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19647, 17 June 1929, Page 8
  9. ↑ Prime Minister's residence. Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19771, 8 November 1929, Page 12
  10. ↑ Here and There, Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 35, 11 February 1933, Page 20
  11. ↑ 260 Tinakori Road, Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 130, 3 June 1937, Page 10
  12. ↑ Work Increases, Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 20, 25 January 1943, Page 6
  13. ↑ Wellington rates property information database
  14. ↑ Local Gossip, New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 4
  15. ↑ Dominion Post (Wellington), 2012: 1 December pE1 & 26 December pA14
  16. ↑ Dominion Post (Wellington), 2013: 19 February, pA6

External links

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