Pah Homestead is an 1870s heritage property in Hillsborough, Auckland, and home to the formerly named James Wallace Arts Trust collection. Photo / Supplied
Pah Homestead is an 1870s heritage property in Hillsborough, Auckland, and home to the formerly named James Wallace Arts Trust collection. Photo / Supplied
Auckland’s Pah Homestead cafe is under new management and Inland Revenue put the previous operator into liquidation.
Lockdowns, a tough economy and adverse publicity over disgraced arts patron James Wallace - even though Wallace had no direct connection to the cafe - have been cited among reasons for the liquidation.
Pah Homestead, registered as Homestead Limited, was owned by food writer and chef Sam Mannering but before the liquidation it was sold.
Official assignee Anthony Pullan is the liquidator.
Pullan said Homestead Limited ceased operating and as liquidator he was trying to see what could be recovered.
He confirmed neither the current or previous cafe operator had direct links to Wallace, who was convicted of indecent assault and in August stripped of his knighthood.
“Even the entity that went into liquidation had really no connection to James Wallace other than operating from a place that he was a patron of.”
Homestead Limited ceased trading prior to liquidation, Pullan added.
Pullan said Inland Revenue was by far the largest creditor.
The tax department cited “economic conditions, external influences beyond the control of the director and Covid-19″ as causes of the insolvency.
The first liquidator’s report showed unsecured creditors including Inland Revenue, BNZ and eftpos provider Smartpay were claiming $592,365.80.
Asked if the Wallace scandal had damaged the business, Pullan said: “It’s a bit of an awkward one because you’d never be able to piece together what effect that had on the cafe.”
Then Auckland mayor John Banks (right) and private art collector James Wallace look around Pah Homestead in the Auckland suburb of Hillsborough in this file photo. Photo / Dean Purcell
He said adverse publicity linked to Wallace had been mentioned, but so were lockdowns.
The Ministry of Business, Employment and Innovation’s Insolvency and Trustee Service was appointed to liquidate the company in the High Court at Auckland on September 1.
The cafe is at the 1870′s heritage site at Monte Cecilia Park in Hillsborough.
Former Auckland mayor John Banks refurbished Pah Homestead for the Wallace collection at a cost of $7 million.
“The artwork speaks for itself, and if an arrangement can be made that is sound and sensible, I don’t think we should be churlish about displaying it and keeping the Pah Homestead dream alive,” Banks told the Herald in July.
“It can never be named after James Wallace again.”
“The trust has resettled the collection and severed its connections with James Wallace,” the council’s director of customer and community services, Dr Claudia Wyss, said at the time.
