Premier House
| Premier House | |
|---|---|
Premier House at an open day in 2015
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| General information | |
| Location | 41°16′37″S 174°46′15″E / 41.27703°S 174.77082°E |
| Address | 260 Tinakori Road, Thorndon |
| Town or city | Wellington |
| Country | New Zealand |
| Owner | Her Majesty's New Zealand Government |
| Renovating team | |
| Architect | Grant Group Architects |
| Renovating firm | L.T. McGuinness Construction |
| Designated | 24 March 1988 |
| Reference no. | 1371 |
Premier House, at 260 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand, is the official residence of the Prime Minister of New Zealand.
A private house purchased for the Prime Minister's official residence when government shifted its base to Wellington in 1865, it was first greatly expanded then, as its wooden structure deteriorated, shunned by the more modest political leaders on learning the cost of repairs.
It was leased to private individuals for six years in the late 1890s then returned to use as an official residence for the Prime Minister until the Great Depression when a new government in 1935 wished to avoid "show".
For more than half a century generations of children came to know the building as their Dental Clinic until it was renovated and recommissioned as Premier House in 1990.
The original house was built in the early days of the New Zealand colony in 1843 for Wellington's first Mayor, George Hunter. This house, or at least a portion of it, is still located at the southern end of the current building. It has been greatly expanded over the years. Later the residence of Nathaniel Levin the house was bought for use by the country's Premier in 1865. A Wellington newspaper, elated by the city’s new status, thought the £2900 price "cheap". An Auckland paper called it a "monstrous waste of public money".
In 1935 Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage faced with rebuilding the Country's economy in the midst of the Great Depression lived in Seddon's former residence at 47 Molesworth Street later purchasing a house high in Northland. Premier House was turned into a school for dental nurses and a children's dental clinic with 40 later 50 chairs known to all as the murder house. Before fluoridation the molars of the nation's children were soon cored with amalgam. At the time Mr Langstone, the Minister of Lands, was living there and a new house was built for him in the grounds on the site of the stable. During the war the garden grew vegetables for the forces Service Clubs.
By the 1980s after many years of institutional use the building was in a battered state. It was rescued from this decline by Dr Michael Bassett, Minister of Internal Affairs, who initiated moves for the restoration of the building to its early grandeur.
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Wikipedia