Historic Significance

Historical Significance or Value This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1980. This report includes the text from the original Building Classification Committee report considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. The firm of Messrs Harstons Ltd established in Napier in 1904 was the agent for many leading makes of piano, at a time in which almost every home was furnished with a piano, and musical evenings were an important part of the social scene. For over fifty years, 1930-1985, Mr NevIlle Harston operated a music shop out of one half of this building, leasing the other half to various businesses trading under the name of Alsops Grocery. Both are fixtures in the consciousness of many locals. With the introduction of radio, Harston's began to sell radios. However, Harstons never moved into modern stereo or hi-fidelity equipment, and after c.1950 began to specialise in imported sheet music. The store was owned and operated by Neville Harston, himself a musician and an established local identity. Alsop's Grocery has always operated alongside Harston's.

Physical Significance

This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1980. This report includes the text from the original Building Classification Committee report considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: The Harston's building is in the Spanish Mission style, a twentieth century revival of a Californian building type which was used by Spanish missionaries who in the eighteenth century settled in the Western Americas and began a programme of educating and caring for the indigenous American populations. The first Spanish missions were built in adobe (mud brick construction) and then whitewashed to deflect the intense heat of the Californian sunshine. The form of the buildings emphasised horizontality with long low structures extending along a plateau, and the decoration was minimal; arched openings and barley twist columns with occasional bell-tower providing the only embellishment. Simplicity and sincerity were the keynotes of this style and in the twentieth century revival of this style of building, although the religious character or content of Spanish Mission style is gone, these characteristics remain. The use of this style In Napier is very appropriate to the climate and conditions and has been skilfully adapted to the permanent materials used. The first major prototype for Spanish Mission style revival building was the Californian Building at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The style was a common feature of buildings appearing in architectural periodicals of the late twenties and early thirties. E A Williams had a staff of recently-travelled architects who were keen to explore the possibilities of the style in concrete, brick and plaster. The 1932 alterations were to a design "greatly similar to that existing prior to the earthquake" (Daily Telegraph 18/10/32 p.9). TOWNSCAPE/LANDMARK SIGNIFICANCE: The sculpting of the forecourt of Harston's building is a unique feature in this part of Hastings Street, and its Spanish Mission style upper level links to other essays in this style such as the former Gaiety de Luxe Cinema (1932) in Dickens Street, the Provincial Hotel (1932) in Clive Square and E A Williams' other major building in the Spanish Mission style, the Criterion Hotel in Emerson Street (1932).

Alexander Turnbull Library

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington

Daily Telegraph

Daily Telegraph

Ives, 1982

Heather Ives, The Art Deco Architecture of Napier, Napier, 1982

Shaw, 1990

P. Shaw and P. Hallet, Art Deco Napier: Styles of the Thirties, Cosmos Publications, Napier, 1990