This large two storey villa was originally sited at 319 Willis Street, but was relocated as part of the NZTA Inner City Bypass works in 2005 – 2006. The site was originally part of a large section of land that was made up of parts of several ‘town acres’. It was subdivided by The Bank of New Zealand Estates Company Ltd in 1891 and the land was sold to Thomas Sine of Dunedin and Thomas Inglis, a cycle merchant from Wellington. It was then sold as an empty section by auction to Mr H Wright for the sum of £575 in 1896. The terms of sale were noted as ‘very easy’ and the transaction does not appear on the certificate of title for the site. The building was designed by Thomas Turnbull in 1896 and Hugh Wright advertised a seven-room house for let in 1897 with ‘all modern conveniences, newly built on the corner of Abel Smith-street and Willis-street.’
The house was sold to Wellington hotelier John Forbes Orr (1834-1904) and, his son-in-law, Arthur Robert Venn Lodder (1852 – 1911) in 1901. It was probably purchased as an investment property, as neither Orr nor Lodder appear to have occupied the house. Orr and Lodder had both been licensees at the City Buffett Hotel on Lambton Quay in the late 19th century, and Lodder was said to be ‘one of the wealthiest men in New Zealand.’ The house was occupied briefly by William Waddell, a local timber merchant, in 1901, and by various others until it was sold to Charles August Knigge in 1903.
Knigge, originally from Wiesbaden in Germany, had also been a hotelier. He arrived in New Zealand in c.1855 and was the licensee of the Mechanics’ Club Hotel in the late 1860s. He appears to have travelled extensively after his retirement and was said to have returned permanently to Germany in 1900 where he had hoped ‘to spend the remainder of his days.’ He purchased 319 Willis Street in 1903 and renamed the house the Villa Bertha, he then travelled overseas again from 1904 – 1906. Knigge appears to have left New Zealand permanently in 1908 when the house and contents were sold.
The first long-term owner/occupant of 319 Willis Street was Dr Alexander Wilson Hogg. Hogg applied for building consent in 1908 for alterations and these were most likely necessary to convert the house to a doctor’s residence and surgery.
Upper Willis Street was once an enclave of house/surgeries for doctors and dentists and other notable near-neighbours include Dr Ewart’s house/surgery at 279 Willis Street, Dr Levy’s Obstetric Hospital at 278 Willis Street (and the Waimarie maternity hospital at 128 Abel Smith Street), the Children’s Dental Clinic at 254 Willis Street, Dr McGavin’s house/surgery at 200 Willis Street, and Dr Pollen’s house/surgery at 12 Boulcott Street. The house at 319 Willis Street remained in use as a doctor’s surgery until the 1960s, but was sold in 1921 to Dr Thomas Frederick Corkill. Dr Hogg had, by then, departed for Rotorua to take up an appointment as medical officer-in-charge at the Military Hospital.
Dr Corkill (1893 – 1965) was educated in Wellington and received his medical training in Edinburgh. He served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in WWI from 1915 – 1919, was appointed CMG, and awarded the Military Cross and Bar and the Belgian Croix de Guerre for ‘conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in charge of a forward bearer party.’ He later specialised in obstetrics and was appointed Honorary Physician to the Wellington Children’s Hospital from 1922-34, to the Karitane Hospital from 1927 – 33 and to the Alexandra Maternity Hospital from 1922 – 43. Corkill was said to have been an ‘alert, cool and vigilant physician’ with an acerbic manner who would affect ‘no soft purring bedside manner… [as]… he comes to heal – not to lay the flatter unction on the soul.’ He is also said to have dismissed members of the Parents Centre, an organisation that advocated for ‘natural’ childbirth, as ‘a bunch of communists.’
Corkill modified the house in 1928 to form a waiting room, laboratory and clinic, and he added a first floor room was over the entrance porch in 1952. The first floor interior of the building was later damaged by a fire in 1995.
The line of the Ngauranga to Basin Reserve motorway was established in the early 1950s and this was noted on the property’s title in 1969. It was purchased under Gazette Notice 215414.1 in 1976. The house is said to have been leased to medical practitioners and students while it awaited demolition. By 1981, the National Roads Board had acquired ownership of all the buildings from 272 to 319 Willis Street for the purpose of constructing the Wellington Urban Motorway Extension. There was strong opposition to the bypass, particularly to the destruction of heritage buildings, and this led to an appeal to the high court Environment Court and then to the High Court. The final appeal was dismissed in December 2003.
The approved project included the relocation and “preservation” of thirteen heritage properties on the route of the new road, including the five on Willis Street. Transit New Zealand (later the NZTA) prepared the Willis Street properties for relocation in 2005, and the property at No. 319 Willis Street was then moved to 81 Abel Smith Street.
The process of relocation of the Willis Street properties included repairs and redecoration of the building exteriors and this work was completed by 2009. NZTA sold most of the properties that it had acquired for the construction of Karo Drive in c.2010 and the house at 81 Abel Smith Street is now let as commercial office space.
