Physical Significance

This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1993. The following text is from the original Recommendation for Registration considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. Architectural: The house was built in the transitional style coming between the Victorian/Edwardian Villa and the California Bungalow style which began to appear in New Zealand around 1908. The stylistic emphasis of this building is primarily California Bungalow.

Detail Of Assessed Criteria

This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1993. The following text is from the original Recommendation for Registration considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. The following comments are made in relation to the criteria identified under S.23(2) of the Historic Places Act 1993. g) The technical accomplishment or value, or design of the place: The House at 3 Centennial Avenue was designed and built by local builders, Mackie & Son between 1919 - 25. The architectural style of the house is transitional, being essentially a California Bungalow but having in the design vestigial elements of the New Zealand Victorian/Edwardian Bay Villa. The Bay Villa elements of the design are most obvious in the intersecting roof lines achieved by the placement of two gables at right angles to a centre Pyramid roof, with a corner angle gable over the verandah giving the impression of a bay. The windows, however, are set in projecting window frames rather than in the projecting walls of the true Bay Villa, and define the place as a California Bungalow type. The process of combining New Zealand Villa and North American Bungalow architectural styles together started in New Zealand as early as 1908 in Hawkes Bay in the work of William Rush, and was fairly well established before the First World War elsewhere in the country. Some of the New Zealand Villa elements that are featured in the design of 3 Centennial Avenue include a pyramid roof with projecting gable ends and corner angle gable, a verandah between gable ends, a formal archway separating hall from the private rooms at the rear and the stylised Arts and Crafts interior decoration in Art Nouveau style. California Bungalow elements include exposed rafters under the eaves, shingling under the gable ends and bracketed purlins (all Arts and Crafts features), taper cut barge boards, projecting window frames as distinct from true Victorian bays, sun hoods over windows and grouped verandah posts. The interior of the house is remarkably unaltered which makes the place a good example of a California Bungalow interior. The hall still serves the formal function of the New Zealand Villa by separating the formal spaces in the front of the house from the domestic areas at the back. The archway at the end of the hall, with its Arts and Crafts Art Nouveau styled rood screen above displaying a stylised poppy flower motif, marks this line of demarcation between the public and private spaces of the house. The hall also represents the Bungalow influence in being shorter than that found in Villas, and has become in effect a vestibule with passages leading off at the rear. In this sense it no longer determines the plan of the house in the same way that hall-ways did at an earlier period, and this begins to reflect a move away from Victorian/Edwardian formalism and a move instead towards the freer, open planning of the American Bungalow. Vestiges of formalism exist in the arrangement of rooms on either side and to the rear of the hall. One of the interior Arts and Crafts features is the green leadlight glass by the front door with stylised spears, and a flower design in abstract with oval and rectangular geometry. The whole composition suggests the coolness and refreshment of the bungalow, something particularly appropriate in the hot summer climate of Te Aroha. This effect is continued in the use of coloured glass fanlight or transom lights contained within the upper window sashes of some of the rooms. These lights are brilliantly coloured in green, purple and yellow. The Arts and Crafts theme is continued with plain geometric Leadlights evident in the servery located between the kitchen and the dining room. Built-in cupboards in this room represent new design concepts associated with the less formal interior designs of bungalows. The fret-sawn rood screen arch is repeated above the main room bay window, while other characteristic features of the fret-sawn style are evident in the bedroom fireplace mantle piece. Conclusion: House, 3 Centennial Avenue, Te Aroha, is recommended for registration as a Category II as a place of historical and cultural heritage significance and value. The house, built c.1919-25, is a good example of the transitional style coming between the Victorian/Edwardian Villa and the California Bungalow style which began to appear in New Zealand around 1908. The interior of the place is largely unaltered.