Fire station has been nightclub, restaurant

By COLIN TAYLOR

A quaint slice of Auckland's history will be offered to the highest bidder next month when the 100-year-old Ponsonby Fire Station at 13 St Marys Rd is auctioned.

Built in 1902, the yellow brick fire station has been occupied by the licensed restaurant Plusone for the past 18 years.

The 150sq m building is on a 295sq m site next to the St Marys Bay Reserve. The restaurant, seating over 100 diners, extends into a courtyard serving as a summer beer garden.

In addition to the main dining room, the interior comprises a bar with seating area and kitchen. Toilet facilities and a staff room are located on a mezzanine floor.

According to research by the Museum of Transport and Technology, the building replaced an earlier fire station and bell tower built in 1884 that was relocated in St Marys Rd from Jervois Rd in 1889 to make way for a police station.

The fire station is classified as a Residential 7A and is a Category B historic building.

"Essentially this means that resource consent is required to make any alterations and nothing structurally should be removed, damaged or altered in a significant way unless there is a compelling reason to do so," says Bayleys agent Karen Spires.

"The classification is designed to protect the exterior appearance of the building and also retain its interior historic character."

The Ponsonby Fire Station was built by the Auckland City Council to accommodate permanent fire staff, horses and a two-wheel horse-drawn wagon carrying a single hose reel. This was replaced by a two-hose reel mounted on a four-wheel horse-drawn wagon in 1906.

The station was taken over by the Auckland Fire Board on its formation in 1908 and had a permanent staff of three with off-site auxiliary firemen on call.

A year later, the horse-drawn tender was replaced by a second-hand 38hp 1906 Ariel-Simplex fire engine from the Central Auckland fire station. In 1913 the Ariel Simplex went to the Parnell fire station and the Ponsonby Fire Station got a 1909 model 60hp Thornycroft fire tender.

In turn, the Thornycroft was replaced by a 40hp American Kissel Kar in April 1919.

But it proved unreliable and the British Thornycroft was returned to the station in the 1920s enhanced with a 30-gallon (136-litre) soda acid fire extinguisher and hose reel.

The last fire engine housed at the station was a 1916 Daimler that arrived in 1921. The station was closed in 1923 when the staff and fire engine were transferred to a new Western Districts station at the corner of Ponsonby Rd and Lincoln St.

The station was sold to a string of owners who employed it variously as a nightclub, a funeral parlour, a soft toy factory and the well-known Raffles Restaurant.

In 1973 the City News newspaper bought the fire station, which housed its publishing offices.

The auction of the fire station will take place at Bayleys, Maritime Square, at 2pm on October 29.

The proprietors of the Plusone Restaurant are keen to negotiate with the purchaser, if the new owner wants to continue operating a restaurant in the building.