The house at 244 The Terrace was designed by architects Penty and Forde and built in 1898 for Julia Barnett and her husband Alfred Abram Barnett, a financial agent, land agent and Justice of the Peace. The Thomas Ward map of c. 1891 shows there was a seven-roomed house on the site at that time, but the building footprint is not the same as that of the existing house. Julia Barnett died in 1899. Members of the Barnett family lived there until 1911 when it was sold to John Ritchie, civil servant and Chairman of the Land Purchase Board; his son James took it over in 1934. The house is a symmetrical Italianate version of the bay villa. It has been described by architect and writer Charles Fearnley as ‘a substantial house in a street of substantial houses. The stone derivation is very obvious, particularly in the keystone to the segmented arched windows, as well as the moulded quoin blocks… The cornice also is of stone origin, yet the panels below it are pure carpentry. The stained glass panels at the doorway are a characteristically New Zealand form of decoration’. Architect Francis Penty was born in Yorkshire in 1841 and in 1887 moved to New Zealand, establishing an architectural practice in Wellington. In his first ten years he designed at least 150 private houses. Nothing is known of L J Forde, but he may have been a civil engineer based in Masterton. The significance of House, 244 The Terrace derives from its interesting architectural detailing and its contribution to The Terrace streetscape – one of a diminishing number of substantial wooden residences that once lined both sides of The Terrace.