The Drapery and General Importing Co. Ltd. was founded in 1884 by retailer Bendix Hallenstein (1835-1905), founder of the Hallenstein Brothers retailing chain. The first store opened in High Street, Dunedin.
The company thrived until the 1970s but, thereafter, poor economic times took their toll. DIC refurbished their premises from 1979 – 1981 and much of the work was designed to earthquake strengthen the then deficient 1905 original building, known as the annex. The total costs were in the region of $3,500,000, and an Evening Post article of the time noted that “DIC Ltd have helped preserve a building which is thought to be the most [architecturally] significant retail building in Wellington.”
By 1983 the company was in financial difficulties, caused in part by interest payments for the loan to cover the cost of refurbishment works and WH Smith and Brierley Investments took over the management of DIC with the aim of providing financial stability to the DIC “to enable the company to stabilise its funding base and concentrate on long term profitable departmental store trading.” The DIC building was sold to Mr David Chan, the New Zealand based son of a Hong Kong millionaire for approximately $6m (although the building was valued at $11m at the time). Chan had plans to retain the ground floor department store retail space with DIC as the major tenant but to convert the upper floors to a high class luxury hotel. The Wellington store was, however, closed in 1984 and then reopened as the Harbour City Centre, with independent retailers occupying the first two floors and offices above; the plan to develop the upper floors to a luxury hotel did not proceed. Newspaper reports of the time note that there was a public show of sentiment when DIC Wellington closed and that DIC was “…an old fashioned firm that had something almost unique these days – a family spirit reinforced by the management who, up until several years ago, could afford to be generous with the employees in small but meaningful ways.” DIC eventually folded in 1988.
1891 DIC Warehouse by James Hislop, this building was destroyed by fire in January 1905. Image: James Hislop, Bulleyment Fortune Collection.
1905 DIC building by Crichton and McKay. Image: Crighton and McKay, Bulleyment Fortune Collection.
1928 DIC department store under construction, steel structure . Image: FG Barker, WCC Archives 00138_0_11044
1928 Newly constructed DIC department store, Lambton Quay between Panama Street and Brandon Street, Scaffolding has not yet been removed. Image: FG Barker WCC Archives 00138_0_11042
Hallenstein was born in Brunswick, Germany where his family had a woollen mill. At the age of 17 he went to Manchester to learn business from his uncle, who ran a shipping business there. He followed his brothers to Victoria, Australia and there he met his future wife Mary. They married in England in 1861 and in 1863 the couple emigrated to New Zealand. Hallenstein opened his first store in Invercargill. Stores in Queenstown and other parts of Central Otago followed. He was Mayor of Queenstown and an MP but gave up public life to concentrate on a growing portfolio of businesses.
He opened his first Hallensteins in 1876 and eight years later began the DIC. A store soon opened in Christchurch but a move to Wellington was deferred until 1891 for the lack of suitable premises. That year DIC bought a building between Panama and Brandon Streets, on land leased from the Wellington City Council. A contract was let, a warehouse built and the DIC was opened for business. The store’s dual entrance was regarded as important but a Lambton Quay frontage was the main goal.
In 1905, shortly after the death of Bendix Hallenstein, the Wellington store was destroyed by fire. Temporary premises were quickly found and within nine months a new building had been erected. The company continued to try and buy up properties facing Lambton Quay.
The NZHPT Field Notes state that “in 1925 the company acquired sections 67A and 68A of the Provincial Government Reclamation from George Kersley Ltd; another drapery firm and in 1928 section 69A from the Bristol Piano Company. The balance of land fronting Lambton Quay had been leased from the Wellington City Council since 1926, allowing the company to build new premises on this frontage. This street block of land was originally created as part of the Tonks reclamation of 1866 which created Waring Taylor Street, Johnston Street, Brandon Street, Panama Street, Featherston Street, Customhouse Quay (all created circa 1877).
The flat land to the east of Lambton Quay was reclaimed in various stages from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and the land to the west was originally a near cliff face rising to The Terrace at high level above. Lambton Quay in the mid nineteenth century was also known as The Beach or Strand and was established on the flat land above the high water mark on the Port Nicholson foreshore. Houses, shops, workshops and warehouses were built to the west of the quay, with the sea lying to the east. The first major reclamation began at Clay Point in 1857 at the intersection of Willis Street and Lambton Quay. The earthquakes of 1848 and 1855 led to the early settlers preference for timber construction, but the city’s many major fires in the later years of the nineteenth century saw the popularity of (fire resistant) brick and masonry buildings increase. The WCC Old Shoreline Heritage Trail notes that “by the 1920s, this street [Lambton Quay] had some of the city’s finest buildings in an unbroken Victorian/ Edwardian streetscape.” There are also, as noted previously, a fine collection of inter-war buildings particularly at the southern end of Lambton Quay.
The acquisition of the Lambton Quay street frontage allowed DIC to commission plans to build a large department store on the site. Designed by the Melbourne firm of Anketell and Kingsley Henderson, its construction was supervised by local firm Atkins and Mitchell. The principal contractors were Hansford and Mills and the cost of the building was £175,000. This proposal to create a department store on the Lambton Quay frontage involved demolition of approximately a quarter of the original [1905] three storey building “ … to allow for the erection of the [new] tower building.” The department store was completed in 1928 and the 1905 building helped to keep the store functioning during construction. The new building included New Zealand’s first escalator and this was a popular attraction for a building that was, for thirty years, known as one of the tallest in Wellington.
The offices were accessed via entrances to Brandon Street and Panama Street, the first three floors of offices were originally intended to be occupied by DIC staff and were served by “four of the latest high-speed lifts”. The offices have been occupied by various tenants including, apparently, the US Embassy and the South Korean Embassy.
The 1942 Wellington earthquake, which caused £10,000 worth of damage to the building, was a major setback but the company prospered after WWII. Branches were opened in many North Island centres. In 1959 women held 56.6% of the 1,225,897 total shares in the company and the company was known as a traditional one where employee long service (otherwise known as ‘a-job-for-life’) was the norm, the department store had been founded by on socialist principals and the Dunedin office was known (affectionately) as the Kremlin by some staff. The ladies’ restrooms are rumoured to have been the birthplace of one Wellingtonian “with one of the staff, Mrs McKenzie, a trained midwife, standing by to do the delivery. In the event, an ambulance man delivered the baby and Mrs McKenzie was reportedly “most miffed at missing out in taking a bizarre role in DIC’s colourful history.”
The company thrived until the 1970s but, thereafter, poor economic times took their toll. DIC refurbished their premises from 1979 – 1981 and much of the work was designed to earthquake strengthen the then deficient 1905 original building, known as the annex. The total costs were in the region of $3,500,000,[1] and an Evening Post article of the time noted that “DIC Ltd have helped preserve a building which is thought to be the most [architecturally] significant retail building in Wellington.”[2]
By 1983 the company was in financial difficulties, caused in part by interest payments for the loan to cover the cost of refurbishment works and WH Smith and Brierley Investments took over the management of DIC with the aim of providing financial stability to the DIC “to enable the company to stabilise its funding base and concentrate on long term profitable departmental store trading.”[3] The DIC building was sold to Mr David Chan, the New Zealand based son of a Hong Kong millionaire for approximately $6m (although the building was valued at $11m at the time). Chan had plans to retain the ground floor department store retail space with DIC as the major tenant but to convert the upper floors to a high class luxury hotel. The Wellington store was, however, closed in 1984 and then reopened as the Harbour City Centre, with independent retailers occupying the first two floors and offices above; the plan to develop the upper floors to a luxury hotel did not proceed. Newspaper reports of the time note that there was a public show of sentiment when DIC Wellington closed and that DIC was “…an old fashioned firm that had something almost unique these days – a family spirit reinforced by the management who, up until several years ago, could afford to be generous with the employees in small but meaningful ways.”[4] DIC eventually folded in 1988.
