Located at the south end of Wellington’s iconic Cuba Street in Te Aro, the 1870s cottage behind a 1920s shopfront is one of the oldest structures on the street. It has historical significance as a rare survivor of early Pākeha settlement and occupation of the city and for its association with the locally-significant Tonks family and NZPC Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective. The building has architectural value as an example of the Carpenter Gothic style, notwithstanding the plain, functional shopfront, which itself illustrates the commercial evolution of the building.

Ngāi Tara were early occupants of Te-Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington. By the 17th century, Ngāti Ira, Rangitāne, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Māmoe and Ngāi Tahu also occupied parts of the region. Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Mutunga migrated south from the Taranaki region during a period of upheavel in the 1820s and 1830s. Upper Cuba Street is within half a kilometre of the Te Ātiawa kainga Moe-rā Kainga on the slopes above Marama Crescent in Aro Valley. Pākeha settlement of Te Aro occurred in 1840 following the New Zealand Company’s dubious purchase of land from tangata whenua.

Algernon Gray Tollemache (1805-1892), an early settler and later a member of Parliament, bought Town Acre 99, which encompassed upper Cuba Street, from the New Zealand Company Town. The section was sold in 1853 to William Tonks, who established a successful brickworks at the intersection of Cuba and Webb Street and built several cottages nearby.

The cottage is thought to have been built by Tonks in the 1870s, likely as a set of three identical dwellings. It was exclusively used as a private residence until the 1920s when the shop front was added, possibly after a fire severely damaged it in 1923. In subsequent years the building was an illegal gaming house, a dressmaker’s studio, a laundry, a dog and cats dispensary, and a bookmakers. Between 1988 and 1994 it was the headquarters of NZPC Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective. NZPC was founded in 1987 to improve the situation of those in the industry and would later lead the campaign to decriminalise sex work. The headquarters functioned as a drop-in centre and a place where the sex worker community could be safe. It was shared with the city's needle exchange, and the support group People Living with HIV/AIDS. In the 1990s, the building was a Jewish community youth centre.

Following a rectangular floorplan, the two-story cottage has a steep corrugated iron gable roof, rusticated weatherboards and double-hung sash windows. A one-story lean-to at the rear is a later addition. It originally had five rooms, including two bedrooms. The shopfront is one room.

Decorative bargeboards on the front elevation were removed and a finial was added after 1990. In 2021, the cottage underwent interior alterations, including the installation of a new kitchen, bathroom, and internal stairs, and upgrades to the insulation, wall lining and flooring.