hastings cbd heritage inventory project · influenced by the beaux arts and the spanish mission...

Wade Building, 353-359 Heretaunga Street West Inventory Number: 54; Property ID: 21013; TRIM Reference: 21013#002#0003 Draft Report by Marguerite Hill 3 August 2007; Audit 9 December 2009, updated July 2012 (Cochran & Murray); Final Report: November 2012

Hastings CBD Heritage Inventory Project

WADE BUILDING

Photo: R. Murray, 2012

LOCATION:

Street and Number: 353-359 Heretaunga Street West

City / Town: Hastings

Region: Hawke‟s Bay

LEGAL DESCRIPTION:

Legal Description: Lot 158 DDP 29

Certificates of Title (includes Registration): HBC3/153, Hawke‟s Bay Registry


SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANCE:

Architectural Value:

The Wade Building is a simple but elegant low-rise Art Deco-style building on a prominent CBD corner site. It has architectural values related to its long and low proportions and carefully-judged decorative details.

Historic Value:

The Wade Building has housed a variety of tenants throughout its lifespan, including Thomson‟s Suits, a longstanding tenant and an important Hastings business; it has a typical history for a commercial building in the CBD. Aesthetic Value The building is located on a prominent street corner in the Hastings Central Business District, highlighting its elegant design and detailing. It is part of a wider streetscape of contemporaneous buildings that provides considerable visual interest to the area, including the nearby Bistro 103/Electrician building and the Nelson Street Hall.

HISTORY:

A plan shows the building at the corner of Heretaunga Street West and Nelson Streets as being occupied by Currie and Crosgrove (grocers), Johnston (Electric Batteries Limited and Cycle Shop) and Fear and Sands (butchers) in 1925.1 By 1926, the building was owned by Miss Mary Emma Wade. That building was destroyed in the 1931 earthquake, and Miss Wade received earthquake compensation in order to rebuild it. She commissioned prominent architect Edmund Anscombe to design a new building in 1932. The current Art Deco building was constructed by Totterdell Ltd after March 1932.2.

In 1955, the title was transferred to Marjorie Emma Franks and Miriam Wade Miles, and in 1971 Miriam Wade Miles‟ half of title was transferred to Marjorie Emma Redstone (nee Franks). In 1976 the title was transferred to Pamela Mary Barton and Penelope Ann Reynolds. In 1996, the title was transferred to Michael John Thomson, Pamela Judith Thomson and Ian MacGregor, who remain the owners today.3 A number of alterations to the interior and shop front were undertaken in the 1980s and 1990s.4 In 2001, the façade was repainted under the Façade Enhancement Scheme.

According to Wises, in 1950-51, number 359 Heretaunga St West was occupied by the Kiwi Cycle Shop. In the same year, number 357 was occupied by multiple tenants: Field and Raikes, paint wallpaper and glass merchants; Miss Galbraith; and Whittaker and Kennedy, furniture manufacturers. In 1955, Kiwi Cycle Shop remained at 359 and Raikes Ltd occupied 357. In 1959-60, Raikes Ltd had moved to 353, the Kiwi Cycle Shop remained at 359; and Thomson‟s Suits Ltd occupied 355.5

1 Block map created by the Council of Fire and Accident Underwriters Associations of New Zealand, April 1925

2 Di Stewart and Associates, Hastings Central Business District Heritage Study, Volume II – Heritage Register, 1997, register item no.

32. 3 C.T. HBC3/153 Lot 158 Deeds Plan 29, Hastings.

4 ABA 931425, ABA 20030646.

5 Wises Street Directory, 1950-1959-60.


Thomson‟s Suits Ltd are the current occupiers of 353-359 Heretaunga St West, as they took over the entire building in 1993.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:

Architect: Edmund Anscombe (1874-1948) was a significant New Zealand architect who studied in the United States. After a lengthy spell practicing in Dunedin, he moved to Wellington in 1929, eventually establishing a satellite office in Hastings. His work was influenced by the beaux arts and the Spanish Mission style, but he became best known for his later work which featured a distinctive blend of Art Deco and Moderne design. Prominent examples of his work in Hawke‟s Bay include the Hawke‟s Bay Farmers Building and the Westermans & Company building. Anscombe is perhaps best known for the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition buildings in Wellington, built in 1939-40.6

Builder: Totterdell, Ltd.

Date of construction: 1932 Construction details: Single storied; reinforced concrete construction, timber-framed roof with corrugated steel cladding. Description: Wade Building occupies a prominent corner site in the Hastings CBD. The building, a long low single-storey structure in reinforced concrete, chamfers elegantly around the corner. Above the stayed verandah, the façade remains much as it was when first constructed. It is sparely ornamented with elegant Art Deco motifs that emphasise the building‟s strong horizontal proportions – a fan-type moulding running along the top of the parapet and a reeded horizontal band about half-way up the façade. The legend “Wade Building” is worked into the plasterwork on the Heretaunga Street elevation. Just above the verandah is a row of covered-in windows that formerly lit the shops below. Nothing of the original shop-fronts survives below the verandah. The modern shop-fronts are made of tiles and aluminium joinery. Beyond the verandah on Nelson Street, the building continues for a bay, where there is a pair of slender steel-framed windows set in an interesting rebated surround. The wall face is lined out in imitation of stonework. The adjacent garage building – a separate entity but originally owned by Miss Wade – is decorated in a somewhat reduced version of the style of the Wade Building and harmonises with it. This appears on Anscombe‟s original drawings for the Wade Building, along with two garages that may well have been the basis for the existing Bistro 103/Electrician building. It appears the garage may not have been built until 1939, although there is little physical sign of it being a later building.

ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:

Element Significance

Form and detail of façade above verandah Townscape, architectural, aesthetic

Form and detail of Nelson St façade above and below verandah – steel windows etc.

Townscape, architectural, aesthetic

6 Drawn from: Greg Bowron, „Anscombe, Edmund 1874-1948‟, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 16 December 2003 URL: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/


MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES:

Bowron, Greg, „Anscombe, Edmund 1874-1948‟, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 16 December 2003 URL: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/

Di Stewart and Associates, Hastings Central Business District Heritage Study, Volume II – Heritage Register, 1997, register item no. 32.

Wises Street Directory 1916-1959-60. HDC Permit records: “New premises corner of Heretaunga St. for Miss E Wade”, Edmund Andscombe Architect, 14.1.1932 and 13.3.1932, builder Totterdell Ltd.

OTHER INFORMATION:

NZHPT Register: Not registered

District Plan: The Wade Building is not specifically listed as a Heritage item in the Hastings District Plan, but it is located within the Central Character Precinct.

New Zealand Historic Places Act 1993: This site has been identified as a potential archaeological site under Section 2 of the New Zealand Historic Places Act 1993.

OTHER PHOTOGRAPHS:

Nelson Street North view of Wade Building (Sarah Akers, 2009).


Heretaunga Street West view of Wade Building (Sarah Akers, 2009).


ARCHIVE PLAN(S):

New Premises, Corner Heretaunga St and Nelson Street, for Miss E.M. Wade by Edmund Anscombe & Associates (1932) (TRIM Ref: 21013#010)

hastings cbd heritage inventory project · influenced by the beaux arts and the spanish mission...

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