The Swanson Railway Station Project began at the end of 1993 when Waitakere Community Board members David Harre and Penny Hulse heard that the old Avondale Railway Station (built in 1879) was to be demolished and replaced with a modern corrugated iron shelter. The neglected and vandalised station had been closed since 1986. Since it was well worth saving, NZ Read more...
Arty Strother ran a garage on this site for almost 30 years. After returning from World War II he bought a house (through the rehabilitation programme) next to the present garage and in 1947 accepted the offer of a job from Doug Mattson who had just built a new garage on the corner of Swanson and O’Neills Rd. After working Read more...
Started in 1948, the art-deco style house at 710 Swanson Road is a single storey square form building finished with cement render. A square bay is utilised at the front with a centred entrance and vertical and horizontal bands deco the walls. The concrete blocks are hand-made. Read more...
In 1926, 16 year old Milan Babic Yozin came to New Zealand from the coastal village of Padgora in Dalmatia, a poverty-stricken area. An uncle with an orchard at Oratia paid his passage over; Milan worked for two years to repay him. After this he went to work on a dairy farm in the Waikato, preferring to find work with Read more...
The garage and house behind were built by Doug G Mattson in 1947 with the business called Mattson’s Garage. In the late 1950s Mr Linton took over the garage and house until 1962 when the property was split into two titles. The garage, renamed Swanson Motors, was bought by Clevan Holdings Ltd. During that time it was leased by Bill Read more...
Dating from the 1900s, the dwelling at 757 Swanson Road comprises a timber watherboard bay villa with a hipped corrugated roof, a small verandah with fretwork, double hung sash windows and a plastered brick chimney. Read more...
The late 19th century bay villa at 749 Swanson Road comprises a single storey L-plan structure with a gabled roof, two light double hung sash windows, and a bull-nosed corrugated iron front verandah with ornate support posts and fretwork. Finials crown the gables. The villa is set amidst trees. Land history includes: Henry Smyth 1883, mortgage default 1896, J P Read more...
John Beecher Guy built this shop in 1926 for his sister Charlotte (Lottie). It was called ‘Wendy’s Tea and Candy Kitchen’ and sold Peters ice-cream, soft drinks, aerated waters and tobacco and home-made confectionary (Lottie had taken a course in sweetmaking). Without refrigeration the ice-cream was chilled in a mixture of bought ice and salt. Lottie provided morning and afternoon Read more...
The ‘Weekly News’ reported in February 1901 that James Wilkinson of Auckland, who owned a 24-acre block west of Church Street, “has given a piece of land at Swanson for the building of a place of worship, but it is conditional that the place be erected in twelve months, which is rather hard lines on Swanson… (in October 1901) busy Read more...
Bill Calvert’s first butcher’s shop was originally on this site (part of the Calvert block). After the current butchery was built in 1935 his old shop was leased for Mrs Hintz’s Home Cookery and Cyril Morris’ Boot Shop until the building burned down in 1945. Many remembered Mrs Hintz’s hot mince pies for 6d. In 1962 Bill Calvert built the Read more...
