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A five-year battle has failed to save a historic Lower Hutt mansion from the wrecker's ball.
Frederic Wallis House, designed by architect Stanley Fearn and built by prominent local surgeon Campbell Begg in 1927, is being demolished to make way for eight residential lots. The 0.75ha property was sold last year for $2.8 million.
Donated by Margaret Wallis - who named it after her late husband Bishop Frederic Wallis - as a religious retreat in 1937, it has been the venue for weddings, conferences, and exhibitions, including last year's International Festival of the Arts sculpture symposium. It boasts three buildings containing a total of 19 bedrooms, plus a bowling lawn.
Caroline Crutch, whose father was once on the management committee of the trust that ran the property, said pleas to save it had fallen on deaf ears. "We tried really hard but it wasn't to be... I think the trustees decided that it would be better to manage a monetary fund rather than bricks and mortar."
Another former committee member, Dr Richard Norman, said supporters had fought for several years to have the property registered with the Historic Places Trust or with Hutt City Council as a heritage building. While the building wasn't "hugely historic", the grounds and its use were a significant part of the city's heritage, he said.
The grounds were the scene of the bloody Battle of Boulcott Farm in 1846 which left six British soldiers dead after a surprise attack by Maori. They also contain New Zealand's only prayer labyrinth, a 10,000-piece tile pathway replicating the prayer walk at Chartres Cathedral in France.
"One of the big problems is that the Historic Places Trust just doesn't have the money to preserve places like this, so going through the process of having it listed probably wouldn't have helped," Norman said.
Crutch said a new trust was being set up to administer proceeds of the sale through grants. There were also plans to save the labyrinth by moving it to Hutt Hospital.
Developer Graeme Cromie of Commercial Properties said a condition of resource consent was that the company provide a photographic record of the building before its demolition.
