Official Bay, Auckland
Our house is located in the historic heart of Auckland City , New Zealand, in the area formerly known as Official Bay. The house was built in 1901 on the site of where previously was located the wooden house of Thomas Brutton Kenderdine, a surgeon in early Auckland and for many years superintendant of the Auckland Dispensary . That house burnt down in March 1900 (NZH March 13th 1900) and Braemar built the following year.
Earlier, in 1854, Auckland was made the capital of New Zealand and the NZ Parliament “sat” in a large wooden building at the foot of what was known then as Eden Street, until in 1865, the capital was moved to Wellington. Although Eden Street is now known as Parliament Street, Parliament Street was then another street entirely, across where Parliament Park now stands and where the Parliament building stood, at the Anzac Ave end of the Auckland High Court.
The area was known as Official Bay because all of the government officials lived in the immediate vicinty. They had allocated for themselves the best land in the city, a fact that did not escape the attention of some of the other early settlers, John Logan Campbell calling it “Exclusion Bay”. The Governor lived in the big “Old Government House” (the new house now in Epsom) which still stands on Waterloo Quadrant, although now the property of Auckland University. In the adjacent streets of Eden Crescent, Eden Street and Princes Street lived William Mason (Colonial architect), Andrew Sinclair (Colonial Secretary) and Dr John Johnson (Colonial Surgeon). William Lawry of the Methodist Mission had his home in Eden Crescent and various military personnel lived nearby. (See Una Platts book ” A Lively Capital” for more details.)
After the removal of the government to Wellington, the area then became popular with successful businessmen. The Princes Street side of Albert Park was controversially built on with the “Princes Street Merchant houses”, which in the 1970s became the property of the Auckland City Council when their 100 leasehold expired and are now public buildings. The Nathan families occupied various properties in both Princes Street and Waterloo Quadrant, and as a result of their local involvement the Jewish Synagogue was built on the corner of Princes Street and Bowen Street. That lovely building has also now become the property of the Auckland University after being extensively refurbished by a previous owner. Over the years other prominent Jewish families lived nearby, the Keesings in Eden Crescent,the Moss Davis family in Princes St, the Ernest Davis family in Waterloo Quadrant (their old home Brierly was demolished to make way for the Connaught apartment building) , and the Zimans who lived at Braemar.
Nowadays, the foreshore of Official Bay no longer exists, the various stages of harbour reclamation having filled in the little bay and covered the sandy beach. The pleasant place where people swam and where the Auckland Boating club had its headquarters is now about half of kilometer from the sea.
We are members of the Official Bay Heritage Protection Society which aims to preserve the historic features of our neighbourhood.