The Whatawhata community is mourning the loss of their rugby club building after it caught fire around 11pm last night.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand received an alert about the fire at 11.18pm.
Daughter of club president April Haussman, Hariata witnessed the tragic event with her parents. "We got the call and drove to the club. It was a really bad sight ... it is all gone now, burned to the ground. The most valuable thing we lost are photos, the earliest was from 1920, everything else is replaceable."
She says "quite a few" firefighters were on scene trying to extinguish the fire. "They have done a good job... We don't really know how [the fire] started or who has seen it first. We need to wait for the fire investigators to do their job."