Bluestone Store

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Bluestone Store , built in 1861
Bluestone Store , interior view

The Bluestone Store is a storage building in downtown Auckland , New Zealand , built in 1861 and now used as a bar and restaurant. The building was added to the list of Historic Place Category 1 (list of buildings and places worthy of protection) on July 2, 1987 by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust ( NZHPT ) under registration number 2647 . It is the oldest remaining stone building in Auckland .

geography

The building is on Durham Lane , between Queens and Albert Streets in downtown Auckland . Since the building is lined with tall apartment towers, multi-storey car parks and hotels and is in a cul-de-sac, it is not easy to find without local knowledge.

The building

The Bluestone Store is a simple two-story building made of the blue basalt stone of Mount Wellington , which was built rectangular with its long side in a gently sloping slope. This means that the upper floor reaches the ground at the end of the building. The front of the building is symmetrical, with an archway in the middle. The floors and the internal structure of the building are made of wood. Inside the building there is a memorial plaque on the floor indicating that Auckland's first source of drinking water was located here.

history

In the place where the Bluestone Store stands today, there may have been a wooden house. The property was sold by the British Crown to a European settler in 1842. In 1861 the stone building was finally built as a warehouse by the Levy & Goldwater company , whose owners were warehouse managers Bernhard Levy and Nathan Goldwater . The architect was Reader Gilson Wood , born in Leicestershire , England, who also worked as an architect for the colonial government from 1849.

In 1865 Levy & Goldwater rented the building to auctioneers Charles Emmison Knapp and Morton Jones . In 1878 the confectioner Edward Waters bought the building, followed by the grain trader Jakins & Wilcox . The New Zealand Insurance Company took ownership in 1882 and four years later by 1919 J. Craig , a trader from Auckland Brown's Mill , may have been using the rented building to store the coal the company needed to run its mill. The department store owner John Court was another owner of the building, which in 1936 to Kiwi Polish (NZ), which used the house as a production and sales facility.

LW Twist was the new owner from 1963, who used the top floor as a customs office andrentedthe lower area to Top Twenty Promotions , who operated a coffee bar there. The Bluestone Store was laterconverted intoa night club , which has operated under different names over the years. After another renovation when Granny's opened, the building gave various band venues for their performances.

In 1977/78 the building was pretty dilapidated and threatened to fall victim to the wrecking ball that had razed older buildings in the neighborhood. When later Prime Minister Helen Clark became Minister of Conservation in the Labor government under Geoffrey Palmer in 1987 , one of her first measures was to issue a Protection Order , which secured the building for the time being. But it took another 16 years until the building could also be protected by structural measures.

In early 2003 the need for renovation was seen at NZ $ 445,000. In June of that year, the new owner, the Rheingold Parking Company, took over the restoration of the building, including the earthquake protection measures. The architect of the project was Dave Pearson at the time.

Today the building is better known under the name of the restaurant " The Bluestone Room ", which is a well-known address to insiders as a bar, pub and restaurant.

Web links

  • Homepage . The Bluestone Room,accessed January 4, 2017(website of the current owner of the building).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bluestone Store . In: Heritage New Zealand . New Zealand Historic Places Trust , accessed January 4, 2017 .
  2. ^ A b c History of The Bluestone Room . The Bluestone Room , accessed April 2, 2018 .
  3. ^ Anne Gibson : Bluestone Store: a potted history . In: New Zealand Herald . NZME. Publishing Limited , October 18, 2001, accessed January 4, 2017 .

Coordinates: 36 ° 50 ′ 52 ″  S , 174 ° 45 ′ 50 ″  E