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The two-storeyed Bell House, with its verandah on three sides
and French casements leading to it from the main downstairs
rooms, is one of four similar houses built for officers of
the Royal New Zealand Fencible Corps stationed at Howick and
Panmure. Only one other, Keppoch Lodge in Sale Street, Howick,
now remains. Bleak House, built for
Surgeon-Captain Bacot in what is now Bleakhouse Road, and
Major Gray’s house on the western shore of the Panmure
Basin, have long since disappeared. They were all plain hipped-roof
houses with a wide hall, drawing room and dining room connected
by folding doors, and a good stairway leading to two bedrooms
and a dressing room above. The arrangement of downstairs offices
seems to have varied from house to house. There are indications
that they were
designed in Sydney, or possibly in England but this is by
no means certain.
Bell House, named after the later farming owners who gave
it to the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, was built for
Captain C.H. Montressor Smith in 1850-51. Smith, who arrived
in Auckland by the barque Minerva in 1847, was in charge of
the 2nd Detachment of Fencibles. These soldier settlers or
pensioners, as they were called, were sent by the British
Government to live in a chain of defensive villages south
of Auckland- Onehunga, Otahuhu, Panmure and Howick –
at a time when the inhabitants of the infant capital, the
Kororareka debacle fresh in their minds, were increasingly
apprehensive of attack by the Maori tribes of the Thames and
Waikato.
On 10 January 1851 Smith received a Crown Grant of Lot 22,
Pakuranga, in addition to and adjoining his officer’s
location lot which was Number 26. This gave him a total of
195 acres (78 hectares). In 1856 he went to live in Panmure
and was able, having served seven years, to sell the entire
195 acres to Robert King, an Australian of some means, seeking
a place to retire. King evidently farmed the land for he was
said to have brought horses and bullocks in by water. Perhaps
it was he who first called the place Hope Farm.
The rest of the land, comprising Montressor Smith’s
Crown Grant, was apparently acquired by Alexander Bell, the
eldest son, after his father’s death. Alexander Bell
planted wheat, oats and rye and established an apple orchard.
In 1885 he decided that the house would
be better placed on high ground nearer the highways and accordingly
the building was shifted about one and a half kilometers to
its present position. It was probably at this time that a
large lean-to was constructed on the rear (south) side of
the house, containing kitchens, two large bedrooms, and two
small rooms for a servant or farmhand. Unfortunately this
part of the building was a casualty of the conversion to restaurant
use in the late 1970s.
Of Alexander Bell’s four children David became Clerk
to the Manukau County council, Stephen was killed at Gallipoli,
Robert Allen (always known as Dufty) ran the farm while living
at Howick, and Elsie occupied the old homestead. Before her
death in 1963 she made known her wish that the house should
be preserved.
To celebrate the centenary of Bell ownership of the farm a
family reunion was held on 3 February 1968. Shortly after
this Mr. R A Bell gave the house, and about one-third of a
hectare, to the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. The Trust
holds the property as a ‘bare trustee’ for benefit
of the Howick and Districts Historical Society and for over
20 years the house has been leased as a restaurant.
Registered as a Category I historic place
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