The house at 231 Haven Road is an important component in Nelson’s historic port area. This early 1880s characteristic gabled timber-frame cottage has local architectural significance as a rare remaining example of this house type in Nelson. It also has historic importance because of its close associations with the well-known Lukins family and their business interests.

Nelson’s deep water harbour, Nelson Haven, was a reason the area was chosen for the New Zealand Company’s second settlement, and Green Point was a focus of shipping activities from Nelson’s inception. Haven Road attracted businesses and residents involved in port activities, such as important local wharf designer and shipping businessman William Akersten (1825–1905), who had a house on 231 Haven Road’s section in the late 1850s. Likewise, when James Lukins (1826–1897) came to Nelson in the early 1860s he quickly made his mark at the port with a coastal shipping operation and leased land for his lime kiln (just north of 231 Haven Road). Burnt lime was mostly used for agricultural purposes and Lukins’ business was ‘undoubtedly the most important source… in the district’. James was so well-respected the port’s flags were flown at half-mast when he died. Edwin Lukin (1861–1931) was his father’s business successor.

It is likely that 231 Haven Road and its one and a half storey northern neighbour were constructed around the time the Lukins acquired this part of Section 37 in the early 1880s. James’ daughter, Amelia Charles, (1856–1955) owned the property from 1888 and Edwin owned some surrounding parcels. It appears the extended Lukins family lived in the buildings at 231 and 233 Haven Road. Edwin is listed in street directories as living on Haven Road and James also seems to have been resident in one of the houses. In 1916 separate parcels for the houses were surveyed and Amelia sold the cottage section. Amelia and her son, Lewis (1879–1956) who was managing the limeworks, lived in the larger house in the 1920s, and labourers typically occupied 231 Haven Road during this period. These houses are the main remnants of the Lukins’ connection to Green Point and the business they founded, which was synonymous with Green Point until the mid-twentieth century.

The former Lukins house at 231 Haven Road is a typical late nineteenth century T-plan cottage. Its rear lean-to seems to be an early feature and it has retained its chimney. The building’s original form is still evident despite late twentieth and early twenty-first century changes to the building’s front and plastering obscuring its weatherboards. With the port and gasworks nearby there were many houses constructed for businesspeople and workers along Haven Road and Russell Street in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, 231 Haven Road is an unusual type among Nelson city’s examples of late nineteenth century houses recognised on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero, and a now rare remnant of the area’s past.