The presbytery on the Hobson/Wyndham St corner. Photo / Dean Purcell
The multi-million dollar renovation of Auckland CBD's oldest continually occupied residence is entering its third year of work but is due to be finished soon.
Work on the two-level Gothic revival St Patrick's Presbytery on the Hobson/Wyndham St corner started in 2018.
Yet the 132-year-old red-brick home was built in just six months during 1888.
Not only has its restoration taken longer than anticipated, but surprises pushed total costs up.
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Cathedral Centre Board chairman Gregory Shanahan said all walls in the category 1 Heritage New Zealand-protected building were all out of alignment.
Every ceiling board in the two-story home designed by Edward Mahoney & Sons also had to be removed for seismic strengthening. Numbering each of those dozens of 12-inch-wide kauri boards, removing them, boxing them up, taking them to Penrose, stripping off toxic lead-based paint, then reinstalling them was just part of the work to the building.
"Once we took everything down, it was worse than we thought," explained Shanahan of the job originally estimated in 2018 to cost $3.8 million.
The work carried, out by R C C Remediate, might end up costing around $4m, although Shanahan said numbers were unclear until all the work was done.
"This chimney was only just suspended," said the lawyer, pointing to the roof structure nearest to St Patrick's Cathedral. Renovations over the years had seen fireplaces and bricks beneath them removed, leaving chimneys dangling dangerously without their original downstairs supports - an unknown factor at the start of the work.
"But the real problem was lack of alignment," Shanahan said, telling how internal and external walls were all out of plumb, meaning no rooms were square. So the renovation job had to take account of each room's unexpected angles and shape.
None of that was easy because internal as well as external walls are brick.
"It's now earthquake strengthened to 70 per cent of new-building standard. It was only about 33 per cent to 34 per cent previously," Shanahan says of one of the biggest parts of the project.
The ceilings in all rooms needed to be taken down to allow the walls at the ground and the first level to be braced. Brick was tied together at the top and in the centres of each side with a new steel diaphragm. Plywood was also used for strengthening.
The project was so challenging yet precise that Shanahan says documentation will be offered to Auckland University's school of architecture so students can learn from what's been achieved.
The building had been the victim of changes over many decades, he said.
All upstairs ceilings were lowered around the 1970s, obliterating century-old stained-glass leadlights, only visible in recent decades from the exterior.
The faded wallpaper was water-stained because the roof leaked. Carpets were dirty and worn and the entire structure was earthquake-prone, its brittle bricks cemented precariously with unfit-for-purpose sea sand mortar.
The kauri board and batten ceilings rejected paint, having been varnished years before. Rising damp, a cramped kitchen and the need to stabilise the Hobson St bank below a lawn were in the brief, designed by Warren & Mahoney.
A cupboard beneath the stairs was demolished to reveal a pair of matching windows, now flooding the downstairs hall with light. Entrance-way tiles were discovered under layers of floor coverings and those tiles are similar to St Patrick's Cathedral's aisle.
An outbuilding was demolished, wood villa-style sash windows were double-glazed, new utilities brought in from Wyndham St, more bathrooms and toilets developed and air handling, fire and alarm systems installed.
Instead of only two common area bathrooms upstairs, three full bedroom ensuites have been installed there and another downstairs.
The four-lane Hobson St - like having the equivalent of a motorway, with traffic lights - outside bedrooms caused nuisance and insomnia.
"That was what it was like living here," explains Pa Peter Tipene, who has been closely involved in changes and is hoping to move back in the next few months.
"This area was nicknamed Titanic Alley," says Tipene of the upstairs hall, once a narrow low-ceiling walkway dogged by worn paint, wallpaper and leaks.
As cathedral dean, he moved to Ponsonby during the work and is delighted with the changes.
Bespoke carpets were custom-made: the edges are plain navy but the centres carry rows of fleur de lis designs. Brass stair rods hold carpet firm on each step but kauri timber is exposed on the edge.
Heat-pump exterior units are disguised in a roof gully. Windows don't need to open because Tipene said this brought street dirt into the house.
Some broken and cracked exterior bricks were replaced while others were re-pointed with new mortar. Eight fireplaces were restored and fitted with electrically fired burners to make them useful once again.
The original slate roof had been removed some years ago and replaced with roof tiles, but that's now been reinstated with tiles imported from Wales.
"We now have Welsh slate tiles on all of the roof except the conservatory/veranda that has colour steel roofing," Tipene said.
The original kitchen had been moved to a bedroom and was cramped and rundown.
That has now been reinstated in its original eastern area, asbestos benchtops removed and new stone benches and appliances installed. The original brick archway for the coal range was too low to take the new Fisher & Paykel hob, so benchtop cooking was moved to beneath an eastern window for morning sun.
Seven glass pendant lampshades were hung "because the architects said spotlights weren't right", Tipene says of the heritage plan by Devonport's Salmond Reed Architects.
A butler's pantry or mini-kitchen was developed off the main kitchen area, across a hallway. Guest bathroom and cloakroom are alongside "because before, we just put coast on the stair bannister", said Tipene, previously involved in a renovation at Orewa and at the Onehunga Presbytery.
Veranda posts and a wood shade canopy to the north had been recreated.
Humphries Landscaping worked on what was grass banks on the Hobson/Wyndham St corners, planting that prominent street frontage in liriope, hydrangeas, jasmine, lilies and magnolia trees.
"We've spent a lot of money on the building," Shanahan said. "But it's to make it fit as a residence for our priests in the next 50 to 100 years. We're also gifting back to the city part of its culture and history."
In 2009, the diocese finished renovating and upgrading the neighbouring St Patrick's Cathedral for around $12.8m.
And in the final touch for the presbytery, Shanahan said a row of exposed bolt ends from ground anchors on a new Hobson St retaining wall would be capped in specially forged steel dated 2020 to preserve the date of the job's completion.
ST PATRICK'S PRESBYTERY
• Built in eight months 1888
• Originally cost 2086 pounds
• Restored and renovated
• Resource Consent granted 2017
• Construction started 2018
• Due to finish next few months
• To exceed $3.8m original estimate
Other large healthcare hubs near the site include Southern Cross and Auckland Eye.