POTTED HISTORY OF 192 ST ANDREWS ROAD by Helen Pearson

Exeter Street, as St Andrew's Road used to be known, was established in 1896 with the auctioning of a number of sections. It is understood that John Kirkcaldie,  of Kirkcaldie and Stains, purchased 3 of these sections, Lots 52, 53 & 54.

In 1898 Mr Kirkcaldie built this house, being a Victorian Villa style,  as the family beach house. (They had eight (8) children though most would have been adults at this stage.) The verandahs top and bottom wrapped around the front facade and 2/3rds round the northern side of the house.

We believe it consisted of three or four bedrooms and a bathroom downstairs with a fireplace in the main bedroom and upstairs was the living room, kitchen with walk-in pantry and walk-in broom/storage cupboard and possibly two other bedrooms. There would have been an  AGA or wood stove that backed onto the lounge fireplace and there is a serving hatch still in situ from the kitchen into the lounge. Outside the upstairs backdoor the original meat safe is still there. There was a second meat safe attached to the exterior wall of the  woodshed which is no longer there. A tennis court was built across the front of the house. The front door would have been at the bottom of the internal stairs just inside the porch where the current side door is today.

Following the death of John Kirkcaldie in 1925 the property was sold (August 1938) to Alexander Reith Senior and Alexander Reith Junior, described on the titles as engineers of 'Pahautanui' (sic). The Reiths had been managing a farm up Paekakariki Hill road and at the same time running a  motor vehicle repair garage from a shed on a neighbouring farm closer to Pauatahanui. The purchase was prompted by the recent completion of the road bridge at Paremata which enabled the traffic to bypass Pauatahanui.

Photos possibly taken at the time of the construction of the garage in 1939 show a picket fence running across the front of the property.

The Reith family consisted of Alexander and his wife Irene along with their son Alexander junior aged 22 years in 1938.  They lived upstairs and to enable the repayment of the mortgage, three sections of verandah were enclosed by the Reiths to enable the downstairs to be rented out.

At one time, possibly 1940 to 1951, according to Mrs Patricia Reith junior: “Mrs Speedy rented the northern half consisting of the current front room, kitchen and sunroom/bedroom while Mrs O'Donaghue and her daughter rented the main bedroom, sunporch and kitchenette. The bathroom and toilet were shared.” 

Configuration:

When Patricia came to the house as a new bride in 1951, the downstairs kitchen had no cupboards and just one double sash window. The lounge only had the two doors from the verandah and the hallway with a double sash window through to the sunporch.  The main bedroom had no windows, just the two doors to the sunporch and the hallway.

See the adjacent photos that clearly show the change in window configuration on the northern facade.

To turn the bottom level of the house into a home for the Reith Juniors, substantial cupboards were added to the kitchen along with a window over the sink and a larger window to the north. In the front room windows were added on either side of what is now the front door, and a door replaced the double sash window out to the sunporch. A new window was added on the south wall of the main bedroom  and the kitchenette became known as the little room, used for storage.

There is a photo taken possibly in the late 1920s that shows the widow's walk and back of the house which has raised questions. There appears to be a quite substantial room/s off the kitchen upstairs that is on poles. (The existing washhouse appears to have been added at a later date.) We have no idea what it was used for but the meat safe would definitely have been there.

Building additions:

Garage: The existing lube bay and showroom attached to the garage was added 1956.

House: The double car garage in front of the house was built in the early 1961.

Later in the 60s the upstairs bathroom was created.

Lot 52 was sold in the late 1960s.