KEY POINTS:
A former sweet factory has been converted into retail, office and apartment spaces.
The Heard family operated their candy business out of their Parnell building for 54 years from 1921. Now surrounded by re-construction equipment, it will soon look like this artist's impression and house nine luxury apartments.
Heards Residences, 164-168 Parnell Rd, Parnell. The building that can boast some of the sweetest memories as one of Auckland's most colourful family-owned enterprises is coming back to life as luxury apartments, commercial offices and stylish shops on Parnell's prime shopping strip.
This is the place where in July 1914, on the eve of World War I, Leonard Henry Heard moved his modest business making boiled sweets to a building that has had its iconic status rescued from obscurity by the Medina Group developers and Ashton Mitchell Architects.
"Everyone still refers to it as 'The Heards Building' and the history of the building and its importance within Parnell meant that it deserved the best that we could put into it," says Medina's Athol McQuilkan.
Ashton Mitchell architect Gary Mason created a new lettering font from historic photographs to rename the building simply 'HEARDS', to the delight of Chris Heard who is the great-grandson of the founder.
Says Chris, whose own claim to fame is as the Auckland Blues loosehead prop, "I'd seen the name on photographs at home but it was just magic to see it back up on the building when I was driving past."
Chris' father Leonard Charles Heard returned from two years' formal study in confectionery making in London to become factory manager here at the age of 22.
Within these same solid concrete walls and floors, and the existing roof height, the architectural team have configured nine apartments on the top two floors, two floors of commercial space and ground floor retail around a five-storey central, glazed atrium.
Hefty design and construction challenges were sweetened by the unique opportunity to restore heritage features to a Parnell landmark.
A plaster mould was taken of one of the original exterior circular plaques so that all four corners now show the famous lady holding a tray of chocolates that defined Heard's original branding.
Inside, the two lifts (one for exclusive apartment use) are a state-of-the-art contrast to the original concrete stairs with their iron balustrades.
For Auckland City Council heritage committee member Christine Caughey, a recent walk through the building and up those stairs evoked fragrant memories of her varsity holidays working on the production line.
"I felt as if I was arriving at work. It was a real flashback. It's wonderful to see the passion with which this iconic building is being restored as an investment in Parnell and the whole city."
Throughout, there are references to the building's function producing everything from barley sugars and toffees to chocolates and licorice allsorts from 1921 until the company's shift to Waiuku in 1975.
Many of the apartments still retain the solid beams and pillars as unique design features. New windows in powder-coated aluminium joinery fit original window cavities and match new ceiling-height French doors to balconies.
The cream/white exterior colour scheme is complemented with three interior colour palettes - Toffee, Barley Sugar and Liquorice. These define the tonal choices of stained Tasmanian oak timber flooring, the wool carpet and the stone/marble kitchen and bathroom vanity surfaces. White walls and white lacquered kitchen, bathroom and laundry cabinetry are common to all schemes.
All apartments have tiled balconies. The four rooftop apartments each have a gas fireplace and three carparks and one has an outdoor den/spa in what was once stairwell space. The four three-bedroom apartments and one two-bedroom apartment on the lower floor each have two carparks.
If these original walls could talk, they'd tell of the March 1948 fire that devastated this building. The younger Leonard Heard remembers the flames as a five-year-old. He learned much later how the company's competitors manufactured Heards candy until the factory could be rebuilt in what he describes as a gesture of "great comradeship".
In 1953, in the midst of subsequent expansions, the Heard family gifted neighbouring land that is Heard Park to the city. That, too, is about to undergo a refurbishment of its own.
* WHAT'S AVAILABLE: Nine two- and three-bedroom luxury apartments on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Heards building. From 157.8sq m to 307.9sq m including balconies with two/three carparks each.
PRICE INDICATION: From $1.35 million to $3 million.
INSPECT: Sat/Sun 11am-1pm.
ON THE WEB: www.bayleys.co.nz 43505
SCHOOL ZONES: Parnell Primary School (Year 1-8), Auckland Grammar.
CONTACT: Amy Olsen and Carla Pedersen, Bayleys, ph 309 6020 bus, Amy 021 878 435, Carla 021 417 139.
FEATURES: Freehold luxury apartments in the historic Heards building with separate residential body corporate. One of the two lifts is for exclusive apartment use. Covered balconies, urban and harbour views, individual laundries, tiled bathrooms. Italian stone/marble kitchen bench tops. European kitchen appliances, programmable lighting, air conditioning.
