Revealed: The story of NZ's poshest suburb

Authors Jenny Carlyon (left) and Diana Morrow on top of Mt Hobson, saved for the public in 1881

Remuera and real estate. The two go hand in pricey hand. And, as a new history of the upscale Auckland suburb makes abundantly clear, they always have, ever since John Logan Campbell cast a speculative eye across the northern slopes from the summit of Mt Hobson in 1840.

Campbell failed to persuade the Maori owners to sell their priceless tribal asset, but pressure from land-hungry colonists proved irresistible.

Within two decades, Ngati Whatua's nest egg had been broken up and the land passed to pioneers, farmers and, above all, merchant princes and speculators, whose wheeling and dealing is covered in A Fine Prospect. A History of Remuera, Meadowbank and St Johns.

On Hobson's modest summit, Diana Morrow, who with Jenny Carlyon wrote the new account of Auckland's aspirational east, remarks that the extinct cone itself was part of a typical Remuera story.

Pioneer settler James Dilworth, not content with the sizeable chunk of Remuera he farmed, had his acquisitive eyes on the landmark hill, which Governor George Grey had set aside for the public.

Dilworth, a shrewd and sometimes blunt Ulsterman, waged a determined campaign to add Hobson to his holdings. Potential profits were eyewatering. Dentist Charles Moffitt reaped a 900 per cent reward in just four years when he sold 25 hectare to Dilworth.

Locals though had other ideas. After a long struggle, Brett's Auckland Almanac reported in 1881: "Mt Hobson has, after a hard fight, been gained for the people."

Morrow says the episode and the personalities capture the threads of power, privilege, tenacity and community which she felt were enduring hallmarks of Remuera. The gruff Dilworth, childless from a long but happy marriage, left a legacy in the school for hardluck kids.

People who don't live there, says Morrow, often reveal a kind of ambivalence about the place. "They always have. You get this kind of mockery - you know, Remuera matrons - and at the same time a fascination with its culture and its names."

The book has plenty of establishment Auckland families - Nathan, Graham, Milne, Wilson, Horton and Buddle. It covers a few scoundrels too. One was Thomas Morrin, who went bust then disappeared in February 1905 when the books of a stud company were examined. He resurfaced in Vancouver.

The co-authors got a feel for the place and its people from interviews, many held with descendants of families who hired architects to create grand designs along showpiece roads running down ridges from Remuera Rd. That trend has never really stopped, drawing breath only to cope with financial crises.

The sprawling piles of the 19th century gave way to slightly less ornate Edwardian villas, then to design trends from California, the English arts and craft homes before a generation of contemporary architects used commissions to put a modern stamp on the suburb.

A drive past des res addresses on Victoria Ave and Portland, Orakei and Arney Rds confirms Remuera's mixed character.

Says Morrow: "A fair amount of heritage has been lost but a great deal's been retained too. People are conscious of what they have."

She thinks the destruction five years ago of the gracious 95-year-old Remuera Rd mansion "Coolangatta" was a lightning rod for the place to save what it's got: "I have a sense they don't want it to happen again."

Book giveaway

We have five copies of A Fine Prospect (RRP$55, Random House) to give away. Please send your name, address and phone number on an envelope or postcard to:

Remuera contest, NZ Herald, PO Box 3290, Auckland.