The historic kauri house where Robin Hyde wrote some of her acclaimed work is about to be demolished. Should it be moved instead?
A group of people, mostly from the literary and arts communities, are protesting the demolition of Penman House, 155 Carrington Road, Auckland – a kauri home built in 1908 as part of the Avondale Mental Hospital complex, and once lived in by acclaimed Aotearoa writer Robin Hyde.
The house is soon to be demolished to make way for an iwi-Crown development of the Carrington Precinct in Mt Albert. The land upon which Penman House sits is currently held by the Crown but will be transferred to Waiohua-Tāmaki Rōpū, who said in a statement that the development will include “much-needed housing and community facilities”.
In the statement, the rōpū also said that the iwi notified Heritage New Zealand in 2021 of the planned demolition “to allow it to consider whether any heritage protections should apply before transferring the site to the Rōpū”.
The Spinoff contacted Heritage New Zealand who confirmed that: “Penman House is not listed on the New Zealand Heritage List/ Rārangi Kōrero (the List), nor has it been nominated to us for listing consideration.” A spokesperson went on to say that even if the house was on “the List”, it wouldn’t provide “a protective mechanism. The primary protective mechanism available for heritage places is provided through scheduling under the Auckland Unitary Plan.”
Auckland Council approved the demolition in February 2025. The campaign to save Penman House kicked off in October 2025 and hinges on the fact that Robin Hyde spent the years 1933–1937 living in the attic of the house being treated for severe depression. The unusually humane (for the times) methods of Dr Henry Buchanan and Dr Gilbert Tothill helped Hyde recover enough to write two collections of poetry, a memoir, journals, letters and an autobiography as well as freelance journalism and three novels (including her most famous, The Godwits Fly). The open letter asking for the house to be saved states that Penman House “was essential to [Hyde’s] personal survival and artistic development”.
Enough of this bawling over an old, asbestos-ridden house. Knock it down! Make way for progress. I know you’re going to argue about literary legacy, but your argument to save it is very niche.
It’s not every day we get to celebrate an acclaimed woman writer who had a bloody hard life, so we should do our utmost to honour Hyde’s legacy! Saving the house where Hyde wrote is the traditional way forward. We kept Katherine Mansfield’s birthplace in Thorndon, and Ngaio Marsh’s home and Janet Frame’s, too. Hyde was right up there with those remembered writers, so it’s logical to want to preserve the physical space in which she lived and wrote and keep it alive as a monument to her, and as a space where new art can be made.
OK, but unfortunately the house comes with a lot of complexity both historically and culturally and also just logistics. It’s not practical to save Penman House. Not to mention the fact that Penman House was part of Avondale Mental Hospital where Janet Frame had treatment including electroconvulsive therapy which we know is deeply cursed.
But Hyde had a much better experience at Penman House! It’s the least cursed part of that complex and that in itself should be celebrated.
I don’t think you need to keep the physical building to celebrate Hyde’s recovery thanks to the treatment methods. Her writing speaks to that! What she created lives on in ink and paper. That should be enough. But I think you’ve got to the heart of what is really going on here. Lit elites are upset because nobody knows who Hyde is. Also, the house is about to be on iwi land and they’re going to be doing a hell of a lot more with it than a clapped out old house ever could.
Firstly, I think a lot of people know the name Robin Hyde even if they can’t name one of her books. And if they don’t then all the more reason to elevate her memory through saving this house. But the creation of housing and community spaces is hard to argue with, I grant you. But, the campaign to save the house has suggested that the house could be moved. There are a hell of a lot of names on the open letter: Dame Fiona Kidman, Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Elizabeth Knox, the Publishers Association of New Zealand … they’re no fools! They know a thing or two about the value of our literary heritage and the generative nature of turning writer’s homes into refuges for concentrated writing and thinking time.
I would be willing to bet that most people who put their name on that open letter have benefitted from a residency with an historic NZ writer’s name attached to it. This is about making sure that losing the house isn’t also losing a major slice of our literary history and future.
I’m not negating the value of residency spaces or even of preserving historic homes. But you can’t just glibly suggest you can easily move an asbestos-ridden house! Penman is huge. It’s unhealthy and no doubt the exercise of shifting it would be hellishly expensive. You’re not seriously going to tell me that a niche community of Hyde fans could afford that.
Paula Morris went on RNZ’s The Panel and said she could raise the funds and do it next week if she was allowed. So moving the house can’t be that hard? (Morris also said on air that she had been drinking heavily that day, so I guess grain of salt and all that.)
Sorry, but according to research there’s a lot that has to be done before a house can be moved: there are consent processes, not to mention you need land to put it on! Is Morris planning on plonking it in her back yard?
OK sure, but had this house been looked at seriously way back in 2021 all of this could have been put in place.
Possibly. But the fact is that there is no heritage status applied to Penman House and now it’s in the way of progress.
What does that say about how we value a) women writers; and b) the history of mental health treatment in Aotearoa? If Heritage NZ, Auckland Council and iwi are all happy to demo Penman House that suggests we are in a situation where our literary icons are seriously undervalued. Those entities should have raised heritage status – or at least had the conversation with the literary and arts communities about whether it was necessary to do so. Hyde matters. Her work is protected by UNESCO! But we can’t even save her most precious and generative home.
No. I don’t think that’s right at all. The statement by Waiohua-Tāmaki Rōpū said they “have guided cultural protocols, site monitoring, and the recovery of heritage materials, including kauri and timber flooring, to preserve the building’s cultural and natural elements where possible”. Sometimes history has to live on in other ways so that progress can be made for people right now. This house is in the way of progress. It feels pretty Nimby to stand in the way of it tbh.
I still think that the house could have been moved and put to good use elsewhere. There could have been a conversation brought to the community back in 2021 and the cost-benefit analysis done then, not at this panicked 11th hour.
But a residency in Hyde’s name could still be created. If saving Penman House is all about drawing attention to Hyde’s work and legacy then actually, you can do that in other ways without spending a ton of money moving an asbestosy house that honestly looks like it is too big to move anywhere.
True … But you can’t replace the sensation, the privilege of being in the room where a great writer once wrote. Hone Tuwhare’s crib is now a residency space: how magical is that! The vibes!
Sure, but Penman House is problematic in all the ways we have discussed. Saving it just isn’t logical in this case. Better to move on, make way for progress, and honour Hyde in another way. Get imaginative about it. The best thing about the campaign is that I bet a lot more people know who Hyde is now. That’s a great start.
You’re making some sense, I have to admit it.
Admit it! Let the thing be bowled, concentrate on making something else happen in the name of Hyde and for the future of Aotearoa’s literature.
