MEMORY BOXES
Heritage consultant Ann Mcewan peeks behind the facade of one of Hamilton’s oldest buildings.
The historic size and scale of Hamilton’s central business district can be judged by the number of houses within the city centre. The large Arts and Crafts style house pictured was a residence until the late 1980s and its heritage significance is derived from its association with the Rogers family.
Tim and Gwendoline Rogers built their house at the river end of London St in 1913-14. Tim was a medical doctor as were two of the couples’ three children.
Gwendoline Rogers, an artist, is credited with choosing the original house design from a pattern book.
Hamilton architect Thomas Lusk was commissioned to extend the house with a large veranda and first-floor balcony in around 1920. Four years later, Lusk also designed a studio for Gwendoline, which was later enlarged to house the family of one of the Rogers’ sons, Denis. Today the studio-home is occupied by Trust Waikato and is known as Mcgregor House.
House pattern books were a popular source of design ideas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, not only for speculative builders but also for more well-to-do owner-occupiers. Robert Mcdougall’s house in Merivale, Christchurch, for example, came from a pattern book. Mcdougall’s house was later gifted to community healthcare organisation Nurse Maude.
But I digress. The Rogers lived at 2 London St until their deaths, Tim in 1982 and Gwendoline in 1985. They had contributed to the civic life of Hamilton in many ways, including playing key roles in the Hamilton Beautifying Society and the Waikato Society of the Arts, of which Tim was founding president in 1934.
Their son, Anthony, helped to establish Waikato University and Denis served as mayor of Hamilton. The Rogers family’s affinity with the arts community was further underlined with daughter Pat’s marriage to Auckland architect Geoffrey Rix-trott.
In 1989 the Rogers house was acquired by Hamilton City Council for use as offices and in December 1998 Trust Waikato took up residence. The trust built the entrance porch at the rear of the house to reorient it towards the street, Mcgregor House, the shared garden and car park.
The roughcast on the outside of the house is not original but is in keeping with the English Arts and Crafts aesthetic, which can also be seen to good effect in the entrance halls timber panelling and staircase.
The trust works to improve the lives of Waikato people by providing funding for charitable, cultural, philanthropic and recreational projects. By caring for the Rogers house, former studio and garden, the trust is also helping to preserve an important aspect of Hamilton’s heritage.