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House complete. Look to the left for a clue as to what was done with the empty sections
For a young couple hoping to find a house to live in during the early 1950s times were tough! Although the Second World War had ended in 1945, many items, including building materials were scarce as production had been geared to the war effort and it took some time to return to catering for more every day concerns. Rationing, for some items, had not ended until 1949 and there was a shortage of houses and rental accommodation.
We had been lucky that my new husband's parents had owned a large property which was sub-dividable and so a surveyor was hired, the site surveyed, the property was bought and we became the proud owners of a fairly steep hillside! The plan was to enlarge a small flat piece of ground on the front corner of the section on which there was a hen house and run. First, Peter (my husband) had to dismantle the hen house and build a new home for the hens on his parents' property!
In those days there were no front end loaders, bulldozers and bobcats as there are now. There was no access to get one on to the property, even if they had been available. So it was us, our very kind families and friends and the old pick, shovel and wheel barrow! We dug out the bank above the flat space and ran across the section with the wheelbarrows and tipped the soil over the edge on the other fence line to make a drive down to the road. It was a long, long job excavating for the house!
Our friends were wonderful, although we nearly killed one family member when the boys undercut a large overhang and it crashed to the ground almost on top of Peter's brother, Des.
We were hunting for possibilities for building a house and had even got books out of the library showing how to build a house from clay bricks made from all the clay we had! Peter cleverly spotted a newspaper advertisement from Smith and Smith advertising Wentink pre-fabricated houses from Holland. We had saved enough money to obtain a loan from State Advances and, thank goodness, they agreed to lend us the money to build a pre-fabricated house.
We went to Smith and Smith Ltd and bought a house over the counter! Just before we did this there had been some kind of protest from the building industry in NZ because the houses were so cheap and the Government had slapped a tax upon them! Fortunately our funds were sufficient and we paid f1,665-15 -1 to Smith and Smith and started on the preparation.
One day, we were amazed to discover that the Wellington City Council had purchased four of these houses and was erecting them in High St on the hill a section or two away.
One day, we were amazed to discover that the Wellington City Council had purchased four of these houses and was erecting them in High St on the hill a section or two away.
Our good friend, Tom Sharp, who was a builder agreed to help us do the foundations for the house which had to be very accurate, from the very specific directions accompanying the house. There was more digging to get this right and finally the great day came when all the concrete was poured and we had foundations measuring approximately 12 x 9 metres We had gained permission from the owner of an empty section next door to have the house delivered on to his section. We then began the trek up the hill to carry all the boxes, packs and panels up to the site. The driveway to the house was not yet completed and the steps which my parents-in-law had built up from their house were not suitable.
All the boxes and parts had code numbers on them and, as we started the building, there were queries like, 'Has anyone seen a few QG23s around?'
Every single item that was needed to complete the house was delivered, but some of the components were not approved by the Wellington City Council. Holland had evidently been using PVC piping and a certain design of toilet, but we were not allowed to use them as they did not meet WCC specifications. There was an impressive tap fitting to go over the bath, but that too was not permissible as it only had 5.5 turns from 'full off to full on' and the WCC specifications said it must be 7. It was a steel-trussed house with a cement fibre roof and interior/exterior cement fibre panels with a layer of fibre between, which were bolted to the steel. All the weight-bearing joints were around the outside edge of the house which made it very simple to move internal walls later as our family grew. All the units were in four feet modules. The timber used was Baltic pine and the spouting was particularly strong as it was designed to cope with winter snow
Putting the house together was like a giant 3D jigsaw and our friends were simply wonderful. Friends from the Catholic Youth Movement and our local curate, Father Cleary SM all rallied round as well as family and neighbours.
Gordon, Pat and Des Hoskins, Marian Anton, Ron Barber, Jim Fox, Paul O'Brien, Lucie Halberstam and Brian Stempa wielding picks, shovels, hammers and screw drivers. Ron Hildreth, a kind neighbour, offered to glaze the windows as the frames were installed. Brian Stempa did all the electrical work.
As the wedding day approached the pace got more frantic as it didn't look as though it could be finished! We were married at the end of October and came back after a honeymoon week in the Sounds to find that our friends had finished one room! The bedroom was complete with floor, door, and windows, even if you needed to walk across floor joists to get to it! Peter's kind parents allowed us to eat and wash at their house next door and we slept in our own house. We had a wire wove bed frame and a mattress on the floor, but Peter insisted that we packed away bed linen and blankets and up-ended the wire frame every morning, just in case the building inspector came and realised we were living in the house! Slowly, but surely, the drains were dug, the water, the gas and electricity connected and the house became our home!
It is still here, altered and added to at both ends and underneath to accommodate our increasing family- eventually five boys andt hree girls. The four other houses erected by the Wellington City Council and now owned privately, are still on the nearby hill. I believe that the success of these pre-fabricated houses was part of the inspiration for Lockwood Homes in New Zealand.
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