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The site on which Greenslade House sits was originally a Crown grant made to Isaac Coates, Hamilton local body politician and businessman, in 1874. Coates built a house there named 'Wairere', but in 1911 sold the property to Henry and Louisa Greenslade for 1500 pounds, minus the house, which was demolished.
Henry - journalist, gold speculator, and politician - was a wealthy man. He lived in Thames for several decades, but in 1900 moved his family to Glengariff Estate at Ohaupo. Henry was Liberal MP for Waikato and in 1908 became proprietor of the Waikato Times. By the time Henry sold Glengariff and moved to Hamilton in 1911, he was worth 80,000 pounds.
Little expense was spared building Greenslade House, completed in 1912 at a cost of 3500 pounds and a very fine and opulent example of Edwardian architecture. The architect, John Warren, used many design features in the house. The native timbers came from the Mamaku Ranges, the 'Marseilles' roof tiles were imported from St Helena and the pressed metal ceilings from Germany. Stained glass windows, floor and fireplace tiles featuring a fashionable rose motif were specially commissioned. On the ground floor were the dining and living rooms, a library, kitchen, butler's pantry, a maid's room, and the telephone. The Greenslades' phone number was 219, although the operator only worked on Saturday and Sunday nights between 5 and 6 pm. There were five rooms on the first floor and two smaller ones on the second, plus the octagonal 'tower' room.
The toilets were inside flush models; the house was fitted for gas (although converted to electricity in the 1920s) and at the base of the curving mahogany staircase was an ornate brass statue with gaslights. This, however, was sold at some point and was last seen adorning the front garden of a house in Fairfield.
But Henry's luck changed and his fortune diminished. To make ends meet, Louisa sold ferns she grew in the conservatory, and the terrier puppies she bred. In the early 1920s the Greenslades let several rooms and when Henry fared badly in the crash of 1929, they were forced to let the remainder and eventually ended up living in the maid's room behind the kitchen. In 1934 they sold the house to Thomas and Rose Pearson, of the Pearson Sandsoap family.
The Pearsons continued to operate Greenslade House as a rooming establishment until 1952 when they sold to a builder, who subdivided the section. Russell and Gwendoline Pearson bought the house, but sold it in 1970 to Tom and Shirley Muir, who spent the next 15 months restoring it and the remaining gardens to their original condition, and the following 24 years maintaining both, a daunting job.
Greenslade House had two more owners after the Muirs sold in 1994, until 2001 when Kay and Alan Bradford bought it.
Writer: Deborah Challinor
Photographer: Yahn Simons  |
