Early history of the site
The property occupied by Emerald Villa lies on the west side of Hobson Bay near the eastern boundary of the first land purchase by the Crown from Ngati Whatua for the founding of Auckland in 1840. Believed to have been erected in the early 1860s, Emerald Villa is located in Parnell, a separate settlement to the south of the town of Auckland during the nineteenth century and a centre of Anglican administration in New Zealand. From the early years of Auckland's development as colonial capital, Parnell was prestigious residential location.
The Emerald Villa property was originally part of a 5-acre Crown Grant made in May 1854 to Auckland merchant William Smellie Grahame (1813-1894). Grahame was a significant landowner and early Auckland businessman whose bond store on the Auckland waterfront was one of the first stone buildings erected in the colonial capital.
Grahame's land was subdivided early in 1858 and sold by highly successful Glasgow-born real estate agent William Aitken (1826-1901). Promoted as being 20 minutes walk from St Paul's Church (then in Emily Place), the area - a 'splendid marine estate' known as Brighton - was designed to attract wealthy citizens, clerks of refined taste, and 'emulous artisans'. Hobson Bay's southwest slopes were largely undeveloped at this time, apart from a substantial timber residence occupied by architect Reader Wood (1821-1895) on Brighton Road.
Construction of Emerald Villa (circa 1862-1865)
On 19 December 1861, William Francis Lodge (1813?-1906) purchased the three-allotment land parcel on which he was subsequently to erect Emerald Villa. Lodge was a recent migrant to New Zealand, arriving in Auckland with his wife and five children in October 1861. Previously a well-to-do resident of Dublin, Lodge had married Anna Moore (1818?-1875) of Colerain House, County Tipperary in late 1845 or in 1846 receiving a settlement of ₤1000 from her family . He is known to have lived on the prestigious Fitzwilliam Estate, a social and architectural centrepiece of the Irish capital, and appears likely to have been employed in the Dublin judiciary,
Immediately after his land purchase in New Zealand, Lodge started a position as a clerk of courts with the Auckland Provincial Council. As a putative member of the colonial bureaucracy, his choice of Parnell as a place to live reflected his social standing. It may also have been linked to a commitment to the Anglican community, to which his family had strong connections. The purchase was situated between the Anglican Church's administrative centre in Parnell and its Melanesian Mission at Kohimarama, now known as Mission Bay. Within three months, Lodge had bought four additional lots, giving him a sizable holding of over half an acre, comprising more than three-quarters of the block bounded by present-day Tohunga Crescent, Lee, Freemont and Elam Streets.
The first known reference to a house on the site is in January 1863, when Lodge placed an advertisement in a local newspaper thanking his friends and neighbours for extinguishing a fire in front of his residence, suggesting initial construction in 1862. A tender notice for the construction of a 'dwelling house near Parnell' by architects Reader Wood and James Baber in May 1862 may refer to the building but cannot be substantiated. The property was known as 'Emerald Villa' by April 1863 when Lodge's name appears in a list of claims to vote. The fact that Lodge titled his home in this way from the outset suggests that he intended to develop a substantial dwelling befitting a family of means, as in Britain the term 'villa' initially carried connotations of a country house for the residence of an opulent person. The name may also have alluded to the family's origins in Ireland, the 'Emerald Isle'.
Erected close to the edge of a bluff overlooking Hobson Bay, the new timber house enjoyed unimpeded views towards Rangitoto Island and the broader Waitemata Harbour. It would also have been a landmark to ships travelling between Auckland and the open sea. As a two-storey building, Emerald Villa was uncommonly tall for its era and its setting. Most dwellings of the period, particularly outside of an urban environment, were either one-and-a-half storeys or a single storey high.
The design of the building appears to have been asymmetrical from an early stage. Employing an L-shaped groundplan, it incorporated a main wing looking out over Hobson Bay and a shorter side wing facing inland, towards Remuera. An examination of the physical fabric of the structure suggests that the two wings were either erected simultaneously or with the initial construction of the main wing followed by a side wing in the same style and using similar materials. If the latter, a date may be indicated by Lodge obtaining a mortgage for ₤150 in December 1863, increased to a larger sum of ₤400 in April 1865. Alternatively, construction in the early 1870s is possible. In either scenario, it appears that the building was perceived as a unified architectural entity. Both wings were almost certainly in place by 1873, as rates rolls after that date suggest that no major additions took place.
Both the building's appearance and layout reflected Lodge's social status. Internally, the structure was a spacious residence of eight rooms, with its most prestigious spaces being located at the front of the house. These included a parlour and a possible withdrawing room or study in the main wing, and a dining room at the front of the side wing. All of these spaces were heated. Service quarters in the form of a kitchen were located at the back of the side wing, at a greater remove from the other rooms than in more modest properties of the era. Its exposed board décor was considerably plainer than the wallpapered rooms present in the rest of the house. The upstairs was accessed from a staircase in the main hall, leading to two large bedrooms in the main wing and a further two rooms in the side wing. The former were accessed via a long corridor at the front of the building, providing greater privacy to the rooms at the rear, suggesting that they were initially children's rooms. The parents' bedroom is likely to have been near the top of the staircase at the eastern end of the side wing, with views out over the harbour. A smaller room at the rear of the side wing may have been for a younger child. The household was supplied with water from a well at the rear, located close to the kitchen.
Emerald Villa and the development of the New Zealand vernacular
As completed, the building can be seen to reflect a significant step in the evolution of colonial New Zealand buildings. In particular, it belonged to a transitional stage of architecture between the standard flat-fronted Georgian houses of the very early colonial period and the asymmetrical return bay villa of the 1870s and 1880s. During the shift between these styles, a considerable amount of experimentation took place and a wide variety of building forms emerged. The 1860s, in particular, can be regarded as a period of architectural flux, most notably in the houses of the well-to-do. In more modest structures, the transition may have occurred slightly later.
Transitional styles fused Georgian architecture with emerging Victorian features including asymmetrical layouts, prominent gables and Gothic Revival ornamentation. The fluidity of design in the transitional period meant that one or more of these elements might be employed. In the case of Emerald Villa, the building combined a strong sense of Georgian visual simplicity with an asymmetrical return bay and prominent gable ends. Aspects of its design may have been unusual.
In particular, the house incorporated a flush gable towards one end of its main facade, expressing the existence of a return bay extending to the rear of the building. This differed from some of its known contemporaries, which included two known groups. One group, found most notably in Nelson and Northland, had flush gables that were centrally positioned as part of a symmetrical, flat-fronted arrangement. The other group, found throughout New Zealand, had an asymmetrical arrangement incorporating return bays that projected from the front of the building as part of a front L- or T-shaped groundplan.
Houses with central flush gables are known to have existed in the 1850s, as at Woodstock House, near Nelson. The concentration of residences with similar features in Northland, including Clendon House, are considered to be slightly later. Houses with an asymmetrical return bay are considered to have first appeared in Auckland in 1845 and in some Wellington farmhouses of the 1850s, or before. By 1860, the device is considered to have become a fairly standard solution to creating additional space. Symptomatic of a 'pre-industrial vernacular' period when houses were built mainly by tradesmen, the return bay is seen as marking an important step towards a distinctive local style, becoming much more significant in New Zealand than in England. A full vernacular New Zealand tradition is exemplified by the emergence of the later, classic return bay villa.
Emerald Villa can be seen to have adopted an intermediate design between these two groups, conceptually providing a halfway point between the central flush gable and the projecting return bay (see illustration in Appendix 5). In incorporating an asymmetrical flush gable on its main facade, it appears to have been one of at least three residences in its immediate neighbourhood that adopted a similar stylistic approach. At 8 Tohunga Crescent, a one-and-a-half storey house of this design was erected in 1860 by the builder James Lloyd Mandeno. Another at 7 Tohunga Crescent was possibly built before 1873 and almost certainly by 1886. This was owned from 1854 until this time by the prominent architect Reader Wood, who also lived nearby. As the largest of this group, Emerald Villa demonstrates the extent to which basic forms for cottages could be adapted to suit bigger structures during the transition from Georgian to later Victorian styles. The group in general may also be an example of local diversity during a period of architectural experimentation.
More broadly, changes from standard Georgian architecture to transitional forms can also be associated with shifts in political thought from progressive Enlightenment ideas based on egalitarianism and reason, to later Victorian concepts that emphasised respect for traditional authority through reference to medieval architectural styles The revival of popularity in asymmetry and other transitional elements can, in part, be attributed to the activities of the Cambridge-based Camden Society, a conservative body with close links to 'high church' Anglican philosophy that stressed the importance of hierarchies as a way of maintaining social order. Consciously connecting architecture with the development of moral behaviour, the Society formally emerged in 1839, at a time when discontent among working class groups was particularly strong.
In a New Zealand context, shifts towards transitional features in domestic housing occurred at a time when settler concerns about Maori rebellion were rising. Early expressions, particularly in asymmetrical planning, appear to have emerged at the same time as the first New Zealand - or Northern - War (1844-45), as noted above. If surviving examples such as Emerald Villa are representative, they may have become more commonplace in the early 1860s, as tensions in Taranaki and the Waikato broke out in military conflict.
Some of the more prominent dwellings employing asymmetry in Auckland Province appear to have been linked with the Anglican Church and the judiciary, respectively the guardians of moral and legal order in the colony. Known examples include Puketona, built for Edward Marsh Williams, the eldest son of Archdeacon Henry Williams and later the Resident Magistrate at Waimata (circa 1861); Bishop William Williams' residence at Waerenga-a-hika, Poverty Bay (1862); Claybrook in Parnell, erected by architect Samuel Kempthorne, the son-in-law of the secretary of the Church Missionary Society in England (1860s); and Te Makiri, a more ornate example constructed at Helensville for Native Land Court Judge John Rogan (1866). A very early example in the Wellington district, Homewood, was erected in 1846-47 by Chief Justice, H.S. Chapman. Anglican churches were themselves in the vanguard of introducing other transitional elements to New Zealand, notably Gothic ornamentation in the 1840s. In 1865-68, Gothic Revival was prominently adopted for the new Supreme Court in Auckland.
The possible involvement of Reader Wood in at least one of the Tohunga Crescent houses may be interest. Wood was responsible for Anglican structures showing Gothic influence such as the Melanesian Mission in Mission Bay (built 1859; NZHPT Registration # 111, Category I historic place) and St Mark's Church, Remuera (built 1860; NZHPT Registration # 113, Category I historic place). He was also an associate of Frederick Thatcher, designer of several early Gothic Revival-influenced churches in Auckland and beyond.
Early modification
By 1868 William Lodge was contemporaneously District Court clerk and the chief clerk of the Auckland Resident Magistrates Court, two of the most important courts in Auckland Province. His combined income at this time was £300, increasing to £370 by 1875. Lodge retained this role after the abolition of provincial government in 1876, and retired in circa 1881, By the time of his retirement, he owned land at Coromandel and held 47 ha (116 acres) at Ararimu south of Drury and Papakura.
Early modifications to Emerald Villa may be indicated by a single-storey element against the north wall of the kitchen. This appears from its construction methods and materials to be of similar date to the main L-shaped structure, and could either have been a scullery, bathroom or servant's room. A lean-to passage at the rear of the building also appears to have been an early addition, allowing service access between the kitchen and rooms at the northern end of the main wing. A similar lateral passage formed part of the original design at nearby Ewelme Cottage (1863-64), and is also a feature of early missionary structures in Northland, as at the mission houses at Kerikeri (1821-22, modified in the 1830s) and Te Waimate (1831-32). The additions at Emerald Villa appear to be linked with the provision of better service facilities, and were concealed from the main frontage.
The house remained a family home following the death of William Lodge's wife, Anna, in December 1873. It is likely that one or more of the family's three daughters - Anna Elena, Kate Mary and Joanna Charlotte - took on the role of running the household. In the early 1880s, Kate Lodge (?-1929) became an unpaid Anglican missionary helper on Norfolk Island for ten years, training girls to be Christian wives as part of the Melanesian Mission. She is known to have assisted Elizabeth Colenso, whose main work was to oversee the cutting out, sewing and patching of clothes for the Melanesian Mission school. While working on Norfolk Island, Kate met the Tasmanian-born missionary the Reverend James Ozanne (1863-1900). Following their marriage, she moved to Mossley, England to assist with his new role as a vicar. William Lodge continued to live in the house after his retirement until his death in 1906.
Subsequent history
Upon William Lodge's death, the family home was bequeathed to the three sisters in equal shares. Only Anna Lodge appears in the 1911 street directory entry for the Emerald Villa property. By 1915 however, shortly before the renaming of Grey Street as Tohunga Crescent, all three Lodge daughters were listed as living at Emerald Villa. Unspecified repairs to the value of ₤45 were made to the building in 1922. Prior to 1920, the property is known to have included a moderate-size garden extending around the northern side of the house, an enclosed rear yard containing an outbuilding (almost certainly a washhouse), and a large back garden backing onto Elam Street. In 1925 the original holding was re-subdivided into seven lots. By this time three of the proposed lots had an existing timber dwelling (one being Emerald Villa) reflecting the increasing intensification of residential development in Parnell during the first quarter of the twentieth century.
Anna Lodge was again listed as sole occupant of the large residence by 1931, sisters Kate and Joanna having died in 1929 and 1930 respectively. The building's shingle roof was replaced with corrugated iron in 1934-1935. At this time the name of this section of Tohunga Crescent changed to Violet Street, but reverted five years later.
After Anna Lodge died in 1939, a Miss Amy Grenfell Spencer bought the property ending the Lodge family's 76-year association with Emerald Villa. It appears that at this time, the building was little modified from its early form. Valuation records for 1936 list external elements such as wooden tubs, a brick copper and an outside toilet when more modern facilities were becoming the norm. By 1942 the house had been converted into two flats, involving minor changes that may have included modifying the position of the main staircase. The current garage was built, and extensions and other alterations to the washhouse were possibly created. Part of the remnant property, excluding Emerald Villa itself, was sold to a Major George Bailey in 1946. The large house on a further reduced site was purchased in 1950 by University of Auckland geology professor Arnold Lillie, who converted it back to a single unit and modernised some elements internally. During his tenureship, a brick well, which had been previously decommissioned, was rediscovered. Modifications to the washhouse, including the creation of a covered seat beside the well, occurred.
The current owner has held the property since 2005. The house preserves its early form and details to a remarkable extent, and no exact parallels to its design are currently known. It appears to be one of comparatively few surviving large residential houses that clearly fuse Georgian and later asymmetrical design as part of its original architectural concept. Other known examples include Puketona (NZHPT Registration # 66, Category I historic place), and a two-storey concrete farmhouse built by John Gow at Invermay, Otago, in 1862 (NZHPT Registration # 2350, Category I historic place). Other broad parallels, such as Homewood, Wellington, and Waerenga-a-hika, Poverty Bay, have either been heavily modified or no longer exist. A smaller, one-and-a-half storey example of an early return bay structure bearing Georgian influence is Claybrook, Parnell (unregistered). Surviving transitional structures that have symmetrical facades but which incorporate flush central gables include Woodstcock House, Stoke (NZHPT Registration # 260, Category I historic place), and Clendon House, Rawene (NZHPT Registration # 73, Category I historic place).
Full two-storey buildings that demonstrate the Georgian origins of Emerald Villa include the Kerikeri Mission House (NZHPT Registration # 2, Category I historic place) and Captain MacDonald's House, Howick (NZHPT Registration # 507, Category II historic place). A later, 1870s structure that reflects the classic two-storey return bay form is the McNicol Homestead, Clevedon. An example of an1860s building of Georgian design later converted into a return bay structure is Wilton Farmhouse in Wellington (NZHPT Registration # 1370, Category II historic place).
