The Akaroa Pharmacy (Former) building, situated on the corner of 58 Rue Lavaud and Rue Croix, was designed by renowned Canterbury architect, Thomas Cane, for French settler and pharmacist, Henri Citron and is notable for its continued use as a pharmacy for most of its life, since it was built in 1883 until into the second decade of the twenty first century. It has aesthetic, architectural, historical, cultural and social significance.

Akaroa Harbour is a large, long harbour on the southern coast of Horomaka/Te Pātaka-a-Rākaihautū (Banks Peninsula). Tuhiraki (Mount Bossu) is the kō (digging stick) of the famous Waitaha explorer Rākaihautū. Akaroa was occupied by iwi such as Hāwea, Waitaha, Rapuwai, and Kāti Māmoe prior to the southern Kāi Tūhaitara migration to Canterbury. Te Ake was one of several Ngāi Tahu tūpuna (ancestors) who claimed land during this migration, placing his tokotoko at the head of the harbour. Akaroa continues to be a renowned mahinga kai (food-gathering area) for the local Kāi Tahu hapū based at the small kāika of Ōnuku which is located just to the south of Paka Ariki, Akaroa township. By the early nineteenth century, Akaroa Harbour had become a favourite port of call for whaling ships. French whaler, Jean François Langlois became involved in land transactions in the area in the late 1830s, which eventually lead to the founding of the Nanto-Bordelaise Company and ultimately, in August 1840, French (and some German) settlers from the Comte de Paris landing at Paka Ariki/Akaroa. A handful of other French settlers arrived in the decades after 1840, Henri Citron being one who arrived in Akaroa in 1870. Citron purchased the section at 58 Rue Lavaud in 1879 but initially operated his pharmacy business elsewhere in town. In 1882, he engaged one-time Canterbury Provincial architect, Thomas Cane, to design ‘a wooden 10 roomed house and offices, with concrete foundations, at the corner of Cross street and Lavaud street’.

Standing in a prominent position on the corner of Akaroa’s main street, Rue Lavaud, and Rue Croix, the Akaroa Pharmacy is a two-storeyed timber-framed commercial building clad in rusticated weatherboards, with a hipped roof of Decramastic tiles that sits over earlier corrugated iron. The foundations are of concrete. The principal (east) façade, fronting Rue Lavaud, has two display windows and two recessed doorways, one parallel to the street and one on a diagonal at the corner. Windows and door frames have Italianate style decoration, with matching details in the upper floor windows.

At the start of 1888, Citron retired from business due to ill health. He sold his property that year to George Fawcit Dodds Senior who also ran a pharmacy, called ‘The Medical Hall’, on the site. The Dodds family retained ownership until 1947 and throughout this time a chemist or pharmacy operated out of the building, although not always by the Dodds. Other pharmacists have owned the building since 1947 and until well into the second decade of the twenty first century, it still functioned as a pharmacy. The Rue Croix frontage of the building has been altered, particularly by an extension west towards Rue Jolie. In 1940 the Rue Croix side of the building was damaged from a fire relating to a fatal light aircraft crash. A series of alterations, starting with a lean-to that was in place by 1940, have culminated in an extended concrete block ground floor and 1979 first floor above. When the building was repaired and strengthened in 2014 and 2015, following damaged caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, some of the charred timber from the 1940 fire was found. At the time of writing this report, in 2021, Jamie Stewart operates Peninsula Trading Post services, stocking a wide variety of hardware and other supplies, representing the third generation to run a business from the building after his father R.E. Stewart (Chemist) and grandfather, R.S.C. Stewart (Chemist), dating back to the 1930s. Haus Waffles also operates at the corner front of the building.