Chateau Tongariro

Chateau Tongariro is a New Zealand hotel and resort complex.

It is located close to Whakapapa skifield on the slopes of Mount Ruapehu, and is close to the volcanic peaks of Mount Tongariro and Mount Ngauruhoe, within the boundaries of Tongariro National Park, New Zealand's oldest.

Chateau Tongariro Hotel the building was completed in 1929 and, despite extensive refurbishment, still retains much of the style of the pre-Depression era.

In 1887 the Paramount Chief of Ngati Tuwharetoa, Horonuku Te Heu Heu Tukino gifted the tribes land – including the sacred mountain peaks of Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro - to the people of New Zealand. The gifting was to ensure the area’s protection for all time, for all people.

In 1925 Sir James Gunson drove the first car to Whakapapa. The new ‘highway’ was pushed through towards Mt Ruapehu with the help of labour from the Whakapapa prison camp early in 1925 under the supervision of Dave Dunlop. Until then the approach to Whakapapa had been only for the fit and strong. There were miles upon miles of wild country to cross on foot or horseback, wild rivers to ford and mountainous terrain to navigate.

In 1923, the Tongariro National Park Board investigated a site for a 100-bed hostel in order to encourage tourists to visit the newly formed Park, but it wasn't until 1925 that New Zealand Government via the National Park Board followed up this initiative by offering to lease land and lend up to £40,000 to any private company which would build and operate a hotel on the site.

Rodolph Lysaght Wigley (1881-1946) the managing director of the Mount Cook Tourist Company took up the option. He formed the Tongariro Park Tourist Company with a vision to build the Chateau, alongside the original Whakapapa Ski huts. To raise capital for the undertaking the company was floated on the sharemarket, where it was poorly subscribed. The company signed a lease with the government on 9 November 1928, a condition of which was that the building had to be erected by 31 March 1930 (barely 17 months away) and that it "cost not less than £40,000 or more than £60,000". Despite only £30,000 of shares being taken up, Wigley let a contact in late 1928 to Fletcher Construction Company, which also involved Fletchers buying 15,000 of shares in the Tongariro Park Tourist Company.

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