- Queen’s Hall, built in 1906, is now a stylish three-bedroom home heading to auction with a $3.2m RV.
- Anna Comrie-Thomson, the owner for 30 years, restored the historic building, preserving its unique features.
- The property, with its extraordinary city views, is ideal for someone who appreciates its theatrical beauty.
Back when Auckland was a fledgling city, a Freemans Bay family built a venue for their daughter’s musical talents.
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The impressive Queen’s Hall, on Paget Street, was opened with some fanfare in 1906 by the mayor, Arthur Myers, and became a hub for concert recitals and public lectures.
Fast forward 120 years, and the historic building is now a stylish three-bedroom home, which is heading to auction later this month with an RV of $3.2 million.
Vendor Anna Comrie-Thomson has lived there for 30 years and told OneRoof that she set out to bring it back to life.
Vendor Anna Comrie-Thomson turned the hall into a beautiful home, but stayed true to its origins as a recital hall. Photo / Supplied
The property faces Auckland CBD and enjoys the warm light that reflects off the skyscrapers at sunset. Photo / Supplied
She did not know a lot about the Thorne family, who built the hall, but an Auckland Star article in Papers Past describes the big opening day.
The mayor declared the venue open for public use as part of an increasing number of “halls and places generally that are growing up in and around the city”, the article said.
The opening was crowded with visitors, and the mayor told how Mrs Thorne had provided a suitable place for the musical, literary and social elevation of those who visited.
The article described the hall as a solidly built brick structure, 74 feet long by 28 feet in width, with a height from floor to ceiling of about 25 feet.
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“It has a neat stuccoed front of cement, is lighted and ventilated and is lined and ceiled (sic) with rimu, and the walls painted a light green, with the exception of a chocolate coloured dado [support joint].”
Seating capacity was around 250, including 80 in the serpentine-fronted and ballasted gallery, with the platform capable of accommodating another 40 people, the article said.
Comrie-Thomson said one of the wonderful things about living in the former hall was the height and space it offered. The acoustics, she said, were fabulous. “That’s what it was built for.”
She told OneRoof she didn’t set out to buy a piece of history when she was out hunting for a new home 30 years ago. And she definitely wasn’t looking for an absolute do-up.
Comrie-Thomson loves the height and the space that the hall offers. Photo / Supplied
One of the bedrooms is situated on the mezzanine floor. Photo / Supplied
“It’s just that I happened to go inside it, and I thought this is just so unique and so beautiful.”
Beautiful though it was, there was nothing that did not need upgrading: “I’ve done everything from drainage to electrics to everything, absolutely everything,” she told OneRoof.
The building’s history appealed to her, though, as well as its beauty. “It was such a beautiful old building,” she said, noting that she decided to build her new home around the hall-theatre space.
“I firmly believe that if this is to be a successful dwelling for someone, it is the human that must adapt rather than make the hall adapt to their way of life, because it doesn’t have everything,” she said.
“It doesn’t have everything that houses have - it doesn’t have lots of rooms. It doesn’t have lots of stuff that people expect to see.”
Her home has a stage, and because there was nothing she could do with a stage, she elected to put everything she needed home-wise there, so there is now a log fire, a laundry and an internal stairwell downstairs to a storage room, which her son used as his bedroom.
She slept in the backstage room and her daughter slept upstairs on the mezzanine with the serpentine balcony.
Comrie-Thomson believes the land the hall was built on belonged to the Thornes, who also built a small cottage adjacent to their home.
She was told the architect had the surname Wiseman and that he also designed the ferry buildings downtown (Alexander Wiseman).
She is selling up because it’s time to move on and says the ideal buyer would be someone who’ll love the former hall for what it is.
“You never know who’s going to absolutely love it, you know? Who’s to say that I was a person who was going to be passionate about it and be prepared to do what I’ve done in it and live there for as long as I have?
“It’s definitely for someone who wants the beauty of a theatre around them and is prepared to adapt to that.”
Bayleys listing agent Blair Haddow said the property was a rare offering with an extraordinary view of the city. He could only think of one other similar sale in the area, a property on Renall Street dubbed “the railway house”, which was smaller and had sold for $3.1m about four years ago.
- 9 Paget Street, Freemans Bay, Auckland, goes to auction on February 18
