1862 NZ Villa

 The Taranaki Sketchers were sketching early villas in the same area this past weekend.  This colourful old lady built in 1862 had its frontage added in the 1870's

Rainy Villa

On a covered deck in the rain I got a cold that lasted a week. Now, the sun's back and so am I.

Crusty old locals

This beauty 'starred' in Hunt for the Winderpeople. It's under renovation too, great that it's going to be saved.

This classic bay villa on Ponsonby Road is due for demolition apparently - council
has removed heritage protection. Stink one.

Carlyle House, part of The United Church of Tonga buildings, gets spookier yet more interesting looking by the year. 

Local character turned early morning takeaways

In a move that adds new meaning to the old saying 'There goes the neighbourhood', some of the old houses in my area are actually being driven off down the road.

In this case a 100+ year old Victorian 'corner angle bay' villa was cut into 3 parts, jacked up onto 3 hydraulic trailers then taken away in the dead of night.

The old place is apparently destined for a country plot somewhere up north. This is great of course – at least it isn't being demolished – but the continued removal, destruction and replacement with concrete tilt slab apartment blocks is changing the local character forever.

It was quite fascinating to follow the process. First of all they disconnected the power lines from the street. Then the foundations were carefully dismantled and these clever hydraulic truck trailers
(a sort of Chev Impala lowrider re-interpretation of a Kenworth trailer) are positioned underneath. The chimneys are dismantled, and away they go – in the middle of the night of course – because you can't go driving houses around in peak hour traffic can you.

I'm aware of several other old villas around the corner set to go also (view the sketch here). I wonder if this is something happening across the country, or is it just the character inner city suburbs of Auckland like Ponsonby and Grey Lynn?

Do you, like me, think it's strange that most of our heritage buildings have no historic rating or protection at all?