Early history of the site
The site occupied by Sonoma was part of a significant Maori and early colonial landscape on the Symonds Street ridge. Prior to European arrival, land at the northern end of the ridge incorporated a pa known as Te Rerengaoraiti. Another settlement, Horotiu, may also have been located in the immediate vicinity, occupying high ground overlooking the Horotiu (now Queen Street) gully. Ongoing cultivations on the ridge were intermittently maintained during inter-tribal hostilities in the early nineteenth century and re-established by Ngati Whatua in the late 1830s. These were abandoned shortly before the Crown purchase of 3,000 acres at Auckland in 1841 to accommodate a capital for the new British colony.
Following the establishment of Auckland as a colonial settlement, the Symonds Street ridge was at the epicentre of British administrative and military power in New Zealand. Significant buildings in the area included the Colonial Governor's residence at Government House, the Provincial Council and General Assembly, and the Albert Barracks - which was the largest military installation in the colony. Erected using Maori labour in 1846-1852, the basalt walls of the Barracks enclosed accommodation for approximately 1000 soldiers. The northern wall and structures associated with the fortification lay a short distance to the south of the current site of 21 Princes Street, with a military road running immediately beneath the property. This formed the primary access to the Barracks, linking its main gate with the southern terminus of Princes Street until 1873.
Following the relocation of the colonial capital and its associated administration to Wellington in 1865, many of the troops were withdrawn. In February 1870, the last of the fourteen British regiments to serve in New Zealand left the Barracks, after which the fortification was decommissioned.
Redevelopment of the Albert Barracks Reserve
Decommissioning enabled a large part of the eastern core of colonial Auckland to be redeveloped. Prior to the construction of the Barracks, the Surveyor-General Felton Mathew had intended that the northern end of the Symonds Street ridge should be occupied by residences arranged in fashionable avenues and crescents. In the 1870s, the area remained desirable for its proximity to places of high social standing such as the former Government House, and for its elevated vantage point overlooking Auckland's commercial district. The Auckland Improvement Commission subsequently laid out new roads, subdivided the land and promoted the creation of Albert Park.
The redevelopment appears to have marked a new approach in urban Auckland, consciously creating a neighbourhood based on wealth. Formal restrictions for leaseholders stipulated that sections could not be further subdivided and that the houses erected were to be two storied, roofed with slate or iron and to be built at a cost of at least £700. Plans for the houses were also subject to the approval of the commissioners. Earlier residential areas in Auckland were generally more mixed and influenced by shared places of work (such as occupation of the Symonds Street ridge by high officials and ordinary soldiers alike), although some areas were traditionally more prestigious than others. The redevelopment attracted many wealthy merchants, who had become Auckland's new elite following the departure of government officials to Wellington. The former were often self-made men from working- or lower middle-class backgrounds, whose success reflected the unusually high potential for social mobility in colonial New Zealand. Their rise was assisted by a prolonged economic boom in the 1870s and Auckland's emerging role as a major Pacific entrepot.
As part of the redevelopment, tenders for the southward extension of Princes Street from its junction with Waterloo Quadrant were received in June 1873. The road, along with others in the vicinity, was evidently complete by April 1875. Most of the Barracks wall was also dismantled in 1873-1875. In keeping with the proposed nature of the area, the streets were metalled, lit with gas and provided with drainage and sewerage. Deciduous trees were also intended to be planted.
In December 1875, the Auckland Improvement Commissioners auctioned 99-year leases for fourteen sites on the western side of Princes Street. Considered to be the premier plots within the redevelopment, these were advertised as desirable for their 'unsurpassed and uninterrupted view' over the surrounding area and their proximity to the Government House grounds. They were also considered suitable as villa sites for businessmen as they lay just a few minutes walk away from Auckland's main commercial district in the Queen Street gully. All of the purchasers obtained at least two conjoining allotments between 1875 and 1877 to provide generous sites for their homes.
Construction and initial use of 21 Princes Street
The lease for Lots 3 and 4 was purchased in December 1875 by chemist James Sharland (1819-1887). Sharland had set up in business as a chemist, druggist and general merchant in Taranaki in 1847, and is said to have brought the first recorded supply of drugs to New Zealand. Also New Plymouth's representative on the Provincial Council from 1857-1861 and from 1864-1866, Sharland relocated to Auckland in 1866 or 1867, purchasing the chemical business of J.N. Manning. His enterprise outgrew premises in the Queen Street area, necessitating the construction of a new commercial building in Kitchener and Lorne Streets. This lay close to the Princes Street site, near the bottom of Barracks Hill.
Sharland appears to have erected a large timber house on Lots 3 and 4 in 1877-1878. Used from the outset as a family home, its designer and builder are not known. The two-storey weatherboard villa was of restrained Italianate design, with a symmetrical flat front and single-storey verandah. Italianate architecture was often used for mercantile premises and residences in Auckland during the late Victorian period, being modelled on the designs of Italian Renaissance buildings erected from the proceeds of commercial wealth.
Internally, the building incorporated a large central hall, which evidently extended from front to back. Flanking rooms may have included a parlour and another large room on its northern side, and a dining room and service rooms on its southern side. Separate staircases in the hall led to both the upstairs area and a small basement in the rear part of the building. The upstairs contained several bedrooms accessed from a short central hall. It also appears to have included a small room, possibly a dressing room or bathroom, between the two front upstairs rooms. A timber extension at the rear that was present in 1882 may have been part of the structure from the outset. No outbuildings in the rear yard of the property appear in early plans.
In 1878 Sharland published his Settlers' Guide and Household Companion, the foreword of which was written at his home in Princes Street. His publication was compiled with the intention of assisting families and those beyond the reach of medical aid and offered advice as to personal hygiene, rest, diet and exercise. Sharland became a household brand, his products sold throughout the country. He is known to have had close connections with medical practitioners who soon moved into the Princes Street area, perhaps encouraged by the presence of wealthy patrons and contemporary notions linking good health with open space and clean air. Sharland's near-neighbour, Dr Charles Haines, at 25-27 Princes Street, was his personal physician and also occupied rooms above his commercial premises.
Sharland was still the occupant of the dwelling in 1884-85, when Auckland's main synagogue was erected next door at 19A Princes Street. Sharland's first wife, Alice, had died in 1878 and he subsequently remarried Louisa, the sister of Philip Philips. For 25 years the president, secretary and treasurer of Auckland's Hebrew congregation, Philips had played an instrumental role in securing construction of the synagogue on the Symonds Street ridge. He had also been instrumental in having the Albert Barracks site vested in the Auckland Improvement Commission during his time as mayor of Auckland (1871-1874). Following Sharland's death in 1887 until 1890, Philips lived in the house with his sister Louisa. During this period, he continued to play an influential role in local government as town clerk, a post that he held from 1874 to 1899. Philips can be considered Auckland's most prominent local government officer during the late colonial period.
Subsequent use and modification
Although its leasehold remained with Louisa Sharland until 1920, the house was sublet to the manager of the Union Bank of Australia, Alexander Thompson, in 1890. The residence acquired new occupants in 1893 when it became a boarding house, known as Sonoma, run by William Cruickshank. This occurred during a period of economic depression when large houses in the area were increasingly used for this purpose. Cruickshank's premises were unusual in being owned by a man rather than a single woman of good repute. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, wealthy families increasingly moved to residences in Auckland's suburbs.
Documentary evidence indicates that by 1903 a new addition had replaced the earlier rear extension, and a corrugated iron lean-to on the northern side was also in place. The allotment may have been slightly extended in its northwest corner to accommodate a flight of pedestrian steps leading into the yard from a service lane to the rear. The grounds were separated into a front garden, a service yard incorporating washing facilities and toilets, and a rear garden containing what may have been fruit trees and a vegetable plot. Tall timber fences appear to have divided these elements from each other. At about this time or earlier, the name 'Ellesmere' was transferred from an adjacent boarding house at 23 Princes Street.
By 1922, the house had been partitioned. Local street directories record the premises as being in apartments in 1925, a use that continued into the 1950s. In 1947 the building had fifteen or sixteen bedrooms, two kitchens and three bathrooms.
Institutional use and heritage protection
By 1954 the building was occupied by the Auckland University College as an Adult Education Centre. Occupying the neighbourhood from the late nineteenth century, the University College (now University of Auckland) expanded its premises during the early and mid 1900s following a decision to maintain activities on a central city site, on the basis that working people could more easily attend. Defective building materials were replaced and extra toilets constructed to accommodate the new use. Over the following twenty years the building had a large number of tenants. The Municipal Arts Trust was the occupier of the building in 1975 and completed fire-rating work by the following year.
By the 1970s, the land on which the house stood had reverted to Auckland City Council ownership following the expiry of its 99-year lease. In 1963 the Council had decided that Sonoma, along with its neighbours on the western side of Princes Street should be demolished to become part of Albert Park. By 1972 a developing awareness of the importance of preserving heritage, and heritage values in formal city plans, led the Auckland City Council to retain and restore the Victorian residences. The Auckland Improvement Trust Act 1971 allowed the Council to keep one or more of the houses as examples of Victorian architecture, and a subsequent Act detailed how the buildings were to be managed. In 1974 the Council resolved to designate the houses and the adjacent synagogue as a conservation area and to restore them. Physical boundaries separating the property from the adjoining house to the south appear to have been removed at this time or later.
The building was renovated in 1989 to provide for a day care centre for pre-school children, its current use. French doors were installed opening onto a single-storey verandah addition at ground floor level. An additional staircase was provided as well as further toilets. A playground has also been created in its rear yard.
Sonoma is one of very few elite dwellings remaining from when the Symonds Street ridge was the premier residential address in the city. Many contemporary houses that occupied neighbouring streets have been demolished, and of those that remain most have lost significant aspects of their nineteenth-century surroundings, including their curtilages. Together with Albert Park and other houses that remain on the western side of Princes Street, Sonoma forms an important reminder of a major recreational and residential landscape on the fringe of Auckland's colonial commercial district.