Wodonga, a two-storey late Victorian gentleman’s residence notable for its intact and beautifully detailed interior, was built for Invercargill businessman Joseph Small around 1898. Wodonga has architectural and historical significance representing the wealth of a new entrepreneurial business class who had started from meagre beginnings in a fledgling colony and built successful businesses on the back of a maturing nation.

Wodonga is associated with two figures of significance to Southland’s history – Joseph Small, and Arthur Mackrell. Joseph Small was a founding partner in Broad Small and Company, a general hardware and department store that went on to become one of Invercargill’s longest running and and most successful businesses, until its closure in 1983. Small, his wife Eliza and their family lived in this house in the prosperous suburb of Gladstone. The house is fitted out using materials that Broad Small and Company would probably have sold – high quality materials including native timbers for interior detailing, fittings such as the door plates and handles, the ceramic tiling in the fire places and the fire surrounds themselves.

After Small died in 1912, Arthur Mackrell, manager of the Southland branch of the Waitaki Dairy Company, and his wife Revina bought Wodonga and it made it their home for the next thirty years. Mackrell was a significant figure in the history of dairying in twentieth century Southland, being a manager of a dairy company, and a negotiator in the merger of several Southland dairy companies in the 1920s. After Mackrell’s death, the house was owned by company director George Baker, who converted it into two flats, living in one and renting out the other. A subsequent owner restored it to a single residence.

Wodonga is located in the suburb of Gladstone, on the north side of Invercargill. Gladstone is notable for its substantial residences on large sections. Wodonga was one of the first residences to be built on Duke Street. The majority of residences are from the first decades of the twentieth century. Wodonga is set in a mature garden, behind an old holly hedge. The garden layout dates from the time of the house’s construction. Wodonga is a generous four-bedroom late-Victorian gentleman’s residence – a two-storey timber corner-angle bay villa, with two additional parallel gables. The house has some Queen Anne style influences – including its Marseilles tiled roof with apex ornaments, divided window margins, projecting bay windows, multi-pane windows with leadlighting and coloured glass, and the half-timbered effects on the gable ends. In 2015, Wodonga remains a private residence.