Top-level living
The corner building echoed other grand Edwardian beauties on corner sites along Queen St, long since demolished.
APARTMENT 8C, 22 QUEEN ST, AUCKLAND CBD
It is hard to remember how sad and neglected downtown Auckland was about 28 years ago, when Anne and Bruce Clegg bought their penthouse apartment in the Gummer and Ford-designed Dilworth building on the corner of Queen and Customs Sts.
The old post office had been pretty much shut two years earlier, and it would be over a decade before construction would begin to turn it into the railway station that opened in 2003. The Downtown shopping centre was a mere 15 years old, the plaza already looking windblown and shabby. The more intimate street spaces and precincts such as Britomart were not even on the horizon, and fewer than 2000 people lived in the inner city.
But the couple, who’d lived most of their married life in a villa in Onehunga, snapped up the penthouse apartment of the 1925 Dilworth building, thinking one day they would retire here.
Designed by architects Gummer and Ford — who did the CPO two years later, as well as Parnell’s Mayfair flats — the corner building echoed other grand Edwardian beauties on corner sites along Queen St, long since demolished.
“When we bought it, everything was completely done, a developer had redone the building into apartments,” says Anne. “But we were still working, we didn’t want to move out of the old house just yet, so we’ve only stayed a few nights in all this time.”
“We've always had no trouble getting tenants, and when they come, they stay for a long time,” says Bruce. “One American family came for a year and stayed for five. The kids loved it in the city.”
The couple have managed to share the space with friends for special city occasions — kids for the Farmers Parade, New Year fireworks.
Their top-floor apartment, one of four on this level, is tucked back from the street, sheltered from more than a gentle rumble of traffic.
The deep terrace, paved in more of the Portland stone used on the exterior of the building, has views across Quay St and the wharves to the water and surrounding islands (as well as beautiful sunrises) that, with the preservation of Britomart’s Victorian buildings, cannot be built out.
The city views to north and west allow sun into the rooms all day.
The body corporate, which Bruce chairs, commissioned conservation architect Salmond Reed to supervise extensive repairs to the property in 2010, including roofing, copper spouting and castiron downpipes, repairs to the original steel windows and conservation of the rendered and Portland stone structure. Owners pay a long-term maintenance levy for further work that will enhance the heritage building.
The Cleggs believe their new apartment was built to incorporate the former caretaker’s flat, as the deep plaster ceiling cornices and terrazzo floors of the shared lift lobby continue into their entrance. The developer found a similar pale terrazzo for the main bathroom and laundry floor — not easy in 1990 — but the rest of the flat is modern. Polished wood floors and cedar french doors and windows are still immaculate, as is the lacquered kitchen with granite bench tops.
The airy living and dining room has a sweep of curved ceiling, wrapped in french doors to keep it airy and light. Bruce says that it barely needs heating, warmed by the sun and the thermal mass of the building around it, but in summer doors can be opened to the breeze. Each bedroom opens to the terrace, the master also having a walk-in closet and a bathroom that was updated recently.
The couple expect that future owners would want to put their own mark on the apartment by renovating the kitchen, but the existing stainless steel appliances are in good order. New owners might particularly want to make the most of a hidden turret storage room above the kitchen by replacing a pull-down loft ladder with a proper staircase. The small room is tall enough to stand up in, and with original windows on all sides, it could be a charming bonus room, much more than its current use.
There are no carparks in this building but two spaces in the Quay West building on lower Albert St are being sold with the apartment.
“We have mixed feelings about selling. We don’t want to leave,” says Bruce. “But we’re not so young any more. I’m 83, and it’s time.”
With an apartment block under way in Onehunga and their lodge at the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, they realise they’re not going to get the city retirement they’d dreamed of, leaving their delightful piece of city history to the next guardians.