Petre Houses Cliff Road St Clair

At 15 and 20 Cliff Road St Clair are two examples of 1880s domestic architecture by acclaimed early Dunedin Architect FW Petre. Both are in the Tudor/English Cottage style.

The House at Number 20, originally named Springfield, was once the home of Petre and wife Margaret, a daughter of the founding Cargill family. The marriage was lifelong and they had thirteen children, but it had a difficult start, in that it was the first high profile union of a staunch Catholic (Petre) and the dominant Scots Presbyterian settlers of the region. The relationship had begun when Petre was designing 'Cargills Castle' here at St Clair.

Compounding this for the young couple was that the land gifted by Edward Cargill at Number 20, proved, after the building of the home there, to belong to someone else. It had to be given back. So Petre built another house further up the hill, which has not survived.

The house at Number 15, called Pinner House, is of a similar style, built a little later for a stockbroker. Though wildly different from Petre's grand church designs, his domestic buildings also feature a lot of reinforced concrete. Cargills Castle and Castlamore are more grand, while this pair of English Tudor type homes are more understated, kicking off a trend for this style which lasted well into the next century.

Image Credit: Google Maps

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