Culture – Heritage Listing for Maurice Shadbolt House and Studio

The heritage values of a West Auckland house which was once home to one of New Zealand’s foremost literary figures have been formally recognised by Aotearoa New Zealand’s lead heritage agency.

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga has confirmed Maurice Shadbolt House and Studio in Titirangi as a Category 1 historic place. The listing identifies it as a place of outstanding heritage significance for its long and close association with one of New Zealand’s best-known late 20th Century writers.

Today, Maurice Shadbolt House and Studio is managed under the auspices of the Going West Trust. The trust is working to establish Maurice Shadbolt House and Studio as a writers’ residency.

Naomi McCleary, Chair of the Going West Trust says:

“The Category 1 listing for Maurice Shadbolt’s house confirms and celebrates the cultural significance of this site. The house is not an architectural masterpiece, but the walls hold a story of the cultural importance of this late 20th century writer. It is also a very beautiful place, best described in Maurice’s words:

“Much of my life, possibly too much, has been lived in a studio set above a serene New Zealand estuary. This hermit hideout, where I write now, is fringed with spindly mangroves, wreathed with rainforest, and always under siege from loudmouthed birds.”

“It is the perfect place to establish a writers residency in his name,” she says.

Home for most of his adult life, Shadbolt’s house and studio incorporates a California Bungalow erected in the 1940s with a separate purpose-built writer’s studio later created by Shadbolt in 1972, and a garden with native vegetation and features built by him and his family.

It was in his studio that he wrote his New Zealand Wars trilogy Season of the Jew, Monday’s Warriors and The House of Strife as well as his play on New Zealand’s part in the Gallipoli campaign, Once on Chunuk Bair in 1982.

“We are delighted to have supported Going West to achieve their goal of listing Maurice Shadbolt House and Studio as a Category 1 historic place – a very fitting recognition of the place where one of New Zealand’s greatest authors wrote most of his work,” says Mary Kienholz, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Mid Northern Area Manager.

“This listing reflects West Auckland’s support for heritage in general; the Going West Trust is but one example of this. A powerful support for this project has come consistently from the Waitakere Ranges Local Board and their championing of heritage identification and protection and by valuing these places for community use.”

Maurice Shadbolt House joins a number of other West Auckland iconic places – including Lopdell House, Colin McCahon House and Corban Estate Arts Centre – whose heritage values have all been formally recognised by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and which have come to represent the vital role that West Auckland’s thriving arts and literary community plays in New Zealand’s wider cultural identity.

“The use of these places as galleries, artists in residence and now – with the Maurice Shadbolt House and Studio, a writer in residence – represents the cultural powerhouse that is West Auckland. Their use in this way ensures that they will be kept alive and active, while raising local profile and giving back to the community. They are a brilliant use of heritage buildings,” she says.

As well as being functional community assets in their own right, the historical link these places have to some of New Zealand’s leading artists and writers will only see their heritage value increase over time.

Mary praises the efforts of Going West and the West Auckland community that supports them.

“West Auckland should be congratulated for its tremendous vision and its commitment to its arts and culture heritage by recognising these places, including the Maurice Shadbolt House and Studio, in this way,” she says.