Al fresco lease of life for historic building

By WAYNE THOMPSON

Auckland entrepreneur Metin Yildiz would pass a historic stone building near his Mission Bay home, admire its beauty and waterfront site - and think it was wasted.

The 1859 Melanesian Mission building was being used as a restaurant, but its stout back was turned to the people who flock to the reserve and beach.

"I thought it was a such a lovely spot for eating outside," said Mr Yildiz, who is a director of the Mecca cafe chain.

Last year Mr Yildiz, who migrated from Turkey 15 years ago, got his chance to realise that potential when he took over the building's lease.

Last week, the Historic Places Trust revealed details of the controls on modifying the building. It is owned by the Trust and is listed Class A on the Auckland City Council register of heritage buildings.

The trust agreed to a courtyard area for outdoor dining, with a bar, coffee Machine and tables sheltered under a sail, all costing $300,000.

The trust's Auckland co-ordinator, David Reynolds, sees the development as an appropriate way to reuse heritage buildings for business.

He said the building reflected Auckland's changing social landscape from the Melanesian Mission - New Zealand's Anglican spearhead to bring Christianity to the Pacific - to a flying school and a cafe.

It began life as a dining hall and kitchen for a school to train Melanesian boys to be missionaries.

The school had been up the hill at St Johns College, Meadowbank, but that proved too cold for the boys. It was felt they would be more at home beside the sea.

The Rev John Coleridge Patteson set up the mission on land donated by his father and the money for the building came from the reverend's cousin, the novelist Charlotte Yonge, who gave the £400 proceeds from The Daisy Chain.

Workers ferried bluestone (scoria) rocks from Rangitoto Island for the walls of the dining hall, kitchen, storeroom, and a wall to shelter the schoolyard from strong westerlies.

The building had steeply sloped gables, roofed with shingles, thick stone walls and windows of little diamond-shaped panes.

Even on the foreshore with shelter belts, the climate proved too severe and the boys of the Melanesian mission were moved to the far warmer Norfolk Island.

From 1915-24, it served the Walsh brothers' New Zealand Flying School, which used seaplanes on the bay.

It increasingly fell into ruins, with its shingle roof decayed and leaking, and flooring, doors and joinery being ripped out for firewood.

The Anglican church appealed for funds to restore the building and in 1928 it was converted into a museum to display Melanesian artefacts brought back by missionaries.

In 1974, the Historic Places Trust took over the building and the exhibits were moved to the Auckland Museum.

Now, in the age of dining out, it is a restaurant.