This handsome Edwardian villa was designed in 1902 by Invercargill architectural partnership Mackenzie and Wilson for businessman Thomas Timpany. The house has historic and architectural significance. In August 1902 architects Mackenzie and Wilson invited tenders for the erection of a dwelling house for Thomas Timpany. Timpany (1863-1944) was a Southland timber merchant. Born in Scotland, he moved to New Zealand, living first in Dunedin, and then by 1896, Southland. His first wife died in 1896, and in October 1901 he married Helen Gillespie at Invercargill. Helen died in 1906 and the property sold as her will instructed – including five sections on Leet Street. Section 10 was noted as having a ‘splendid new house thereon.’ Sections 9 and 10 were sold together for £1400 – as well as the villa there was a ‘small cottage’ on these sections. In 1909 Cyril Ward bought section 10 with the now four-year-old villa. Cyril Ward was the eldest son of leading New Zealand politician (and then Prime Minister) Sir Joseph Ward. He and his new wife Elinor – the couple had married in December 1908 on his parent’s wedding anniversary – moved to Invercargill. Although Cyril had originally intended to live in Wellington, he took up a position at J.G. Ward and Company in the southern city. Sir Joseph and Lady Ward visited their son, daughter-in-law and new grandson at Leet Street. In September 1913 Cyril took up a position at Kinsey and Co. Shipping Agents in Christchurch. On his father’s death in 1929, Cyril was to inherit the baronetcy that had been conferred on Sir Joseph in 1911. Cyril and his wife Elinor lived in the house until around 1920, when the property was sold to solicitor Mervyn Mitchell. Watchmaker Arthur Clark bought the house in 1948. The property changed hands several times in the 1940s and 1960s. In the 1970s, the property was subdivided. In 2018, it remains a private residence.