The Brandon Street Chambers takes its name from Brandon Street, which was, in turn, named for one of Wellington’s most famous lawyers, Alfred de Bathe Brandon. The building was actually constructed in 1910 for an even more famous legal firm, Chapman Tripp Sheffield Young (then Chapman, Skerrett, Wylie and Tripp).
Chapman & Tripp began in 1889 by Martin Chapman (1846-1924), who had previously been in a partnership with William Fitzgerald, and Leonard Tripp (1862-1951). Fitzgerald had died in 1888 and Chapman sought a new partner. Chapman was the son of a judge, one of the country’s first 10 King’s Counsels, a keen sportsman and, for two years, a city councillor. Tripp, the son of an Orari Gorge farmer, was also a sportsman and sports administrator, founder and president of the Red Cross, and both men held several company directorships.
The partnership took offices in Brandon Street and later acquired the adjacent building and business of the newly appointed Judge W.B. Edwards in 1890. After a distinguished career, Chapman retired in 1912 but, before he did, the firm amalgamated with another prominent firm, Skerrett and Wylie. The enlarged firm demolished its existing timber buildings and built its new building on the two sections. Designed by Frederick de Jersey Clere and built by Watt Brothers of Newtown at an estimated cost of £10,587, work began early in 1910.
For several decades the firm occupied part of its new building but gradually it expanded and the number of tenants declined. In 1929 a timber framed structure was built on top of the roof but behind the parapet. In 1930 Brandon Street Chambers was formed to manage this and any other buildings that the firm erected or invested in. This company went into voluntary liquidation in 1959.
By 1955 the firm’s name had been trimmed to Chapman and Tripp and, by 1975, it occupied the entire building, although it had sold the building to Tohunga Properties in 1963. In 1980, Chapman Tripp moved to AMP Chambers on Featherston Street and the building has since been occupied by a variety of tenants.
In 2003 the Rapaki Property Group applied for resource consent to replace the 1929 top-floor addition with another three-and-a-half floors of apartments. For reasons unclear, construction did not commence.
The heritage value of the Brandon Street Chambers springs from several areas. Architecturally, it is a good example of a commercial building built in the Classical style, but more importantly, it is the work of the prolific Wellington architect Frederick de Jersey Clere. Technically, it has value for its construction of reinforced concrete, a relatively new innovation at the time, and for the building’s rare and original elevator, which was (in c.2001) still in use. The elevator also ties in the authenticity value of the building – much of the original fabric of the façade and interior still remain. Perhaps, though, the most significant thing of note about the Brandon Street Chambers were their role as the offices for one of New Zealand’s most important law firms, the firm now known as Chapman Tripp. The Brandon Street Chambers was Chapman Tripp’s home for seventy years, a time during which the firm developed into one of the country’s largest.
