ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: The single-storeyed house is in the English Domestic Revival style. The formal entry porch opens into a hall of generous proportions. To the right is the drawing room, to the left the master bedroom. Access to the bathroom and an adjoining bedroom is also from this hall. The hall narrows, giving access to a third bedroom and the dining room. A passage then runs at right angles to the kitchen and back door. A servery offers a more direct access from dining room to kitchen. Behind the kitchen are pantry and scullery. The scullery opens onto a porch and courtyard the latter formed by a small wing of out-buildings housing lavatory, wash house and former "servant's" room. Access is also provided to the rear courtyard externally from the front, down the side of the house, by means of a doorway to the roofed porch area. (The configuration of the kitchen, scullery, back porch and linked out-buildings is similar to "Te Mahoe" at Takapuna, also designed by Gummer in 1913.) The main facade, overlooking Wairakei Street, has two bays corresponding with the drawing room and master bedroom. The drawing room has five casement windows, each with six lights, extending to the eaves, and two further casements on each side of the bay. The master bedroom has a single row of small windows under the eaves. A degree of shelter and privacy is afforded the centrally located entrance porch by an unglazed timber screen, the rectangles of which correspond in size to panes in the adjoining windows. Natural light to the porch is supplemented by a flat dormer above. The dormer is clad with hanging tiles which are also found on the main gables of the house. The narrow edge of such tiles are used as a string course below the wall copings at the main entry porch and along the low verandah wall on the north-eastern side of the house. The slate roof is hipped with milan tiles along the ridges. Along the side of the house french doors open from the dining room and the master bedroom onto a verandah contained within the roof line and supported by pairs of square posts. A set of brick steps provides access to the garden. Inside the frieze line is a plate rail in the case of the dining room, hall and drawing room, or picture rail in the bedrooms. Fireplaces, a feature of the house, extend to the height of the rails. This horizontal line is only broken by tall windows. The drawing room fireplace is articulated by an alcove in the frieze and ceiling and is flanked on either side by a recessed niche. Two of the three bedrooms have fireplaces. The dining room and drawing room have window seats with timber panelling. The dining room ceiling has dark beams and timber panels. Wallpaper in the master bedroom dates from 1934, the paper in the second bedroom is likely to be of similar age. The bathroom has a white tiled dado, relieved towards the top by a band of green tiles and green tile dado rail. Doors throughout the house are original, predominantly with three narrow vertical panels with a narrow horizontal panel below. The kitchen is little altered, although an electric stove and brick fireplace now occupy the alcove which originally accommodated coal and gas stoves side by side. The sink bench has been moved from the scullery to the kitchen. MODIFICATIONS: 1924 Electricity installed for lighting and heating, (previously gas) post 1950 Coal range removed from kitchen and brick fireplace installed in half of the alcove leaving original gas stove in place. 1958 Hot water service installed Scullery converted into laundry Sink bench moved from scullery to kitchen New bath, toilet and hand basin installed in bathroom post 1966 Galvanised steel guttering and downpipes replaced with copper 1982 Original gas stove removed from kitchen and electric stove installed alongside brick fireplace.