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Site/Item Description
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The Rutland Building, as it was originally known, was built in Lorne Street in 1929 by Fletcher Construction. The building incorporates many decorative New Zealand elements in its arcade and has a strong corner streetscape. Originally a motor garage, it has had a variety of tenancies.
The site was owned by F.S. Potter, an Auckland coachbuilder. A twenty-one year lease had been granted in respect of the site, to the Fletcher Trust and Investment Company, and it was Fletcher Construction Company Limited who built the structure. The site was sold to the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of New Zealand in 1931. Fletchers transferred the lease to Fisher and Paykel in 1944 and in 1956 the lease was in turn taken over by the State Advances Corporation, later the Housing Corporation, occupants of the building until 1993. The first tenants were Campbell Motors who took over space for a car showroom and garage.
The building was also well known to Aucklanders between 1930 and 1952 as the Peter Pan Cabaret.
The building is an interesting example of the Art Deco style. The exterior is enlivened by polychromatic patterns and geometrical textures displaying the richness of brick as a building material. A plaster frieze introduces curvilinear designs above the building base. Windows and spandrels are recessed, as are the decorative panels, suggestive of Mayan and Aztec designs, that are around the top of the building.
The building's architects, Chilwell and Trevithick, were a prolific partnership designing such buildings as the Masonic Hall, Upper Queen Street (1912); the Myers Park Kindergarten (1916); Whitcoull's Building, Queen Street (1915), Dalgety’s Woolstore, The Strand (1917); and several grand homes such as “Elmstone” 1911 (by Chilwell); “Marinoto”, formerly in Symonds Street; and a house for Mr K.B. Myers, in Tamaki.
(Reference: NZHPT)
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