Early history of the site
The site lies within the southern part of the suburb of Epsom and is located on the lower western slopes of Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill), the former pa of the eighteenth-century Waiohua chief Kiwi Tamaki. Maungakiekie was part of the broader Auckland Isthmus taken over by Ngati Whatua in the early eighteenth century preceding colonisation and the founding of Auckland as capital in 1840.
Subdivided into farms as early as 1842, Epsom became renowned for its large country homes and later as a prestigious city suburb. The land on which the house at 6 Emerald Street was later built was part of an 1847 Crown Grant of approximately 22 hectares, taken up by James Williamson (1814-1888) who subsequently established a large mansion on his nearby estate at The Pah. Epsom farmer William Gardner (1829?-1899) bought the 22-hectare block in 1866, having leased it since 1859. In 1887 he subdivided the parcel into a number of large allotments, laying the basis for the creation of Claude, Crescent and Gardner Roads, and Emerald Street. Following Gardner's death, the Emerald Hill subdivision was created on part of the holding in 1904, and a Presbyterian Church erected there in 1906. Emerald Street appeared in contemporary street directories as New North Road, One Tree Hill.
One of four sections on the west side of the street was purchased in 1905 by accountant John James Ker (1857-1933). Ker had been born in Berwickshire, Scotland, the son of a Presbyterian Minister. Arriving in Auckland in 1882 he joined the Northern Steamship Company (NSC), founded the previous year as an amalgamation of several smaller concerns. The NSC ran freight and passenger services in the upper half of the North Island, and was instrumental in the development of the kauri gum, timber, farming and early tourism industries in the region, as well as providing important contact between otherwise isolated coastal communities. By the early twentieth century, the business was one of only two major independent shipping companies in New Zealand. Ker remained with the firm until retirement in 1920, at times fulfilling the role of acting manager as well as company secretary. He was also actively involved in the Gardner Road Presbyterian Church from 1905, initially as superintendent of the Sunday School, becoming an inaugural member of Session upon the establishment of an Epsom parish as a separate Presbyterian charge in 1908.
Ker was married with a young child at the time that a family home was commissioned for his newly-acquired land. Its site was located a short distance from the large public space at Cornwall Park, donated by Sir John Logan Campbell in 1901. The park, and a rapidly expanding transport network southward from Auckland, made southern Epsom an increasingly desirable suburb in which to live. Increased expectations in the early twentieth century of a re-ordered family as the basis of a decent society saw middle-class families reject cramped housing in older urban centres, in favour of the suburban villa on its own site, housing perceived as affording the degree of privacy necessary for moral growth and decency.
Construction of the house (circa 1905-6)
The Kers' residence appears to have been completed in 1906. It consisted of a single-storey timber villa of corner angle-bay type. Informed by an eclectic combination of Queen Anne Revival and other architectural influences, the building capitalised on a broad east-facing frontage and spacious north-facing grounds to exhibit its overall appearance to best advantage. Internally it featured a range of contemporary products - some particularly notable and ornate examples of their type - without disturbing the simplicity and unity of the overall design.
The handsome bay villa had a visually striking, steep, pyramid roof with secondary ridges, an overall effect enhanced by terracotta cresting tiles and tall, corbelled chimneys of brick. Three gables with shingled ends framed by barge boards with silhouette tracery, were linked by a return-verandah. Internally, the parlour enjoyed a diagonal outlook from the centre of the verandah, while the master bedroom and the dining room each had a generous bay window.
Architecturally, the building drew on the design of the traditional timber bay villa, combining it with newer English and American influences as part of an early twentieth century cultural eclecticism.
The bay villa form was the predominant house style in New Zealand from 1895 to 1910, its myriad designs having been shaped and adapted by speculative builders and the manufacturers of machine-made components. In keeping with beliefs that the home was a key indicator of social status, exterior decoration on villas became increasingly heavier in scale and more complex in its layering. Ornamental styles such as the British-originated Queen Anne Revival were adopted, with the latter particularly affecting the design of New Zealand villas after the turn of the century. Other common influences included the American Eastlake style popular in New Zealand between 1890 and 1910, which utilised carved brackets, perforated circular designs and rows of lathe-turned decoration. From circa 1900 eastern cultural influences including Moorish forms further enriched an already strong eclecticism.
These decorative features and products combined with the more complex house forms - especially the corner-angle bay villa - to produce the short-lived Edwardian villa style.
The Ker residence reflected these developments, adopting some of the Queen Anne Revival style's hallmark features such as a complex roof form, terracotta roof cladding and bulbous-topped chimneys. Its Marseilles tiles were a relatively new material to the colony having been introduced from Australia in circa 1901. The roof shape of Ker's villa represented the coexistence of two different forms, illustrating the ongoing evolution of villa design. The rear section was of a traditional centre-gutter design, a style virtually discarded after 1909 because of potential for internal gutter failure. The visually dominant pyramid section, a notable feature of Queen Anne style houses, was a circa 1900 reappearance of an earlier New Zealand form. Echoes of the colony's earliest homesteads were also evoked by verandahs sheltered under the low-sweeping main roof, a feature of the Edwardian villa style.
Eastern influences were evident in features such as the verandah's chinoiserie balustrade - an interlocking pattern of turned balusters and plain sticks of wood - which matched the spindle-work of the frieze.
Internally, the residence contained a parlour, large dining room and three bedrooms, and was planned around a central hall. The hall was divided into public and private realms by a grand arch supported by classical columns. The rooms of greatest social importance including the master bedroom were located at the front of the house, with less important rooms including the kitchen at the rear. Towards the west end of the hall, a passage ran at right angles to a porch on the north side of the house, separating the formal dining room from the service area. An unusual interior ornamental feature off the side porch was a cusped arch, possibly a Moorish influence.
A notable aspect of the building interior was its lavish use of ornamental pressed metal ceilings. These were found in the most prestigious and public rooms, in contrast with the timber board and batten ceilings in the secondary bedrooms and areas away from the public eye. Decorative pressed metal products had been manufactured in Australia since 1890 and became increasingly popular in New Zealand after 1900. Contemporary advertisements claimed that they belonged to a progressive age, with the potential to transform modern building construction. Ceilings of pressed metal were promoted as permanent, economical, decorative, fireproof, sanitary, and safe, the latter an important quality in the colony's earthquake-prone locality.
The dining room of the Ker residence, the largest and most formal space, incorporated a particularly ornate ceiling, parts of which loosely suggested possible Jacobean influences, or a chinoiserie pattern. Its fireplace was larger than the cast iron register grate of the parlour. Mantelpieces incorporated spindles, shelves and recesses, a particularly Edwardian trait.
The composition and detailing of the Ker villa raises the possibility of an architect's hand. A plain frieze around the exterior is a feature also found on the grand Epsom residence, Florence Court (1907) a work by architect Arthur Lewitt Ferneyhough (1872-1936). Although the 1906 Gardner Road Church attended by Ker was designed by architects Mitchell and Watt, Watt's death in 1907 saw Ferneyhough commissioned as architect of the Church Hall in 1909, the year Ker held the position of Session Clerk (1908-1909) for the Epsom parish. The builder of the house at Emerald Street is currently unknown.
Subsequent use and alterations (1909-2009)
Just three years after its construction, the Ker family sold to Emma Hale, the widow of a Papatoetoe farmer. At this time, a photograph of the house featured in the prestigious national weekly New Zealand Graphic as one of a group of 'striking villas and residences' that had been built for the wealthy in Epsom. A small part of the site was incorporated into an adjoining property in 1914. Four years later the residence was sold to the first of two farmer owners, although in the Great Depression it reverted to Hale (remarried) as mortgagee. A subsequent owner was school inspector Archibald Francis Burnett (1899-1982), who retained the property for 25 years from 1947. Burnett had taught at Maketu in the twenties, and Mount Eden and Okaihau in the thirties, a profession to which he was evidently devoted. Flowering cherry trees on the property may have been planted in the early years of Burnett's tenure or slightly before.
A builder became the first of ten consecutive owners over a three-decade period commencing in 1971. Alterations included the creation of an open plan kitchen area in the rear of the house, with French doors opening onto a new deck to the west. A door between the original dining room and the verandah may have been replaced at this time, but was later reinstated. Externally, a carport was added to an existing garage in 1973 and a swimming pool installed in the rear garden area in 1974, perhaps the year of construction of the pool house or cottage.
In 1983, the bathroom and kitchen area was again reconfigured. A new passage was constructed south from the hall to serve a new bathroom in a small lean-to addition, work which left the roof form of the building intact. A similar en-suite bathroom was added at the east end of the south elevation in 1992. In the main bedroom, a new chimneybreast was constructed of similar size to an original fireplace removed at an unknown date. Garaging was replaced by a new timber-clad structure.
In 1999 further interior alterations included construction of a bathroom within the north passage space, reincorporation of the 1993 passage into a dining room and family room and the creation of a new kitchen, work which saw the introduction of a further pair of fluted columns, and an oriel window.
The house remains in use as a private residence.