page_title: Premier House
section_title: Official residents
hierarchical_section_title: Premier House / Official residents
caption_attribution_description: This is a photograph of Frederick Weld (1823–1891), Premier of New Zealand, Governor of Western Australia, Governor of Tasmania, and Governor of the Straits Settlements. The original photograph is black and white, 15 x 11 cm.
context_page_description: Premier House is the official residence of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, located at 260 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand.
  A private house purchased for the Prime Minister's official residence when government shifted its base to Wellington in 1865, it was first greatly expanded and then, as its wooden structure deteriorated, shunned by the more modest political leaders on learning the cost of repairs.
  It was leased to private individuals for six years in the late 1890s then returned to use as an official residence for the Prime Minister until the Great Depression when a new government in 1935 wished to avoid "show". For more than half a century generations of children came to know the building as their dental clinic until it was renovated and recommissioned as Premier House in 1990.
context_section_description: 1864–1865 : Hon Sir Frederick Weld, 6th Premier
  1865–1869 : Hon Sir Edward Stafford, 3rd Premier
  1869–1873 : Hon Sir William Fox, 2nd Premier
  1873–1875 : Hon Sir Julius Vogel, 8th Premier. Under Vogel's first premiership the house was greatly expanded.
  (1875–1876 : Hon Dr Daniel Pollen, 9th Premier for 7 months)
  1876–1876 : Hon Sir Julius Vogel, 8th Premier.
  (1877–1879 : Hon Sir George Grey, 11th Premier)
  1879–1882 : Hon Sir John Hall, 12th Premier
  1882–1883 : Hon Sir Frederick Whitaker, 5th Premier
  1883–1884 : Hon Sir Harry Atkinson, 10th Premier
  1884–1887 : Hon Sir Julius Vogel as a cabinet minister in the government of Hon Sir Robert Stout, 13th Premier. More extensions were made to the house due to Vogel's poor health. His recurring gout resulted in an extra office being added for Cabinet meetings and in 1886 the construction of New Zealand's first lift.
  The country entered a Depression in the late 1880s and after the Vogels moved out, the new government tried to sell the property. MPs’ salaries had been cut, and the Liberal ministers of the 1890s had to live cheaply. But the press and public fought back. Wellington people valued its spacious grounds as a public amenity. Only the furniture was sold. Some suggested turning the site into an old men’s home or a university, but it stayed empty.
  1887–1891 : Hon Sir Harry Atkinson, 10th Premier
  1891–1893 : Rt Hon John Ballance, 14th Premier
  (1893–1906 : Rt Hon Richard John Seddon, 15th Premier. Following Ballance's death Seddon remained in his modest ministerial residence at 47 Molesworth Street and the Tinakori Street residence was leased out from 1895 to 1900 when it became a ministerial residence again.)
  Tenants
  1893–1895 apparently vacant
  1895–1899 : Sir Walter Buller, lawyer and ornithologist.
  1899–1899 : Percy Smith, surveyor general and secretary for lands and mines and ethnologist.
  Official residents
  1900–1912 : Rt Hon Sir Joseph Ward Bt, as a cabinet minister then Prime Minister from 1906. Now called Awarua, the name of Ward's electorate, the house again became one of the capital's main social places, hosting many formal and informal parties, especially after Ward became Prime Minister following Seddon's death in 1906. One party of particular note was the farewell party given by Miss Eileen Ward, daughter of Sir Joseph Ward, to farewell near neighbour Katherine Mansfield a few days before she left New Zealand for the last time in 1908.
  1912–1925 : Rt Hon William F Massey, Prime Minister renamed it Ariki Toa, ‘home of the chief’. During the First World War the Masseys used it for patriotic activities.
  1925–1928 : Rt Hon J Gordon Coates, Prime Minister. The last Prime Minister to live there. Further extensions were made to the building in 1926 when Gordon Coates lived there including rebuilding the conservatory and adding an enclosed veranda above it but major maintenance work seems to have been deferred again.
  1928–1935 : Rt Hon George Forbes, Prime Minister lived in a flat at Parliament House. Parts of Premier House's floor had subsided up to 30 cm. The ground floor was occupied by the Unemployed and Transport Departments and the upper floor as a ministerial residence by the families of Mr Masters, a former leader of the Legislative Council and Minister of Public Works, Mr Ransom. Following a number of parliamentary debates it was decided by popular demand to not subdivide the land or build Ministerial flats on the grounds. The garden continued to be the location of subscription garden parties raising funds for major charities like YWCA and Girl Guides.
caption: The government of Frederick Weld completed the purchase of the residence.
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