A house built from its maker's imagination
Standing on a gentle rise above Limeburners Bay in Hobsonville, Clark House is one of Auckland's most distinctive surviving structures from the turn of the twentieth century. What makes it remarkable is not just its elegant Italianate form, but the material from which it was constructed: hollow ceramic blocks invented and manufactured by its owner on the very land it overlooks.
Rice Owen Clark II, who had grown the family pottery works into one of the most significant ceramic enterprises in the country, built the house as both a family home and a bold experiment in construction. He believed hollow ceramic blocks, lighter than brick and with natural insulating properties, could transform building practice across Aotearoa. The house, which he named Ngaroma, was his proof of concept.
What it produced was a building of unusual character: two storeys of refined Italianate composition, with ornate iron-lace verandas regarded as among the finest examples of their kind in New Zealand, a carved kauri interior, stained glass windows, and a curved staircase that rises through the heart of the house.
Auckland Council Category A*
Currently under restoration
In 1950, the property passed to the Crown, beginning a new chapter as part of the Royal New Zealand Air Force's Hobsonville base, serving as a Task Force Headquarters before transitioning to the RNZAF's Aviation Medicine Unit. It remained in Crown use until 2016.
Tohu Heritage documented Clark House in June 2026, preserving its exterior in photorealistic 3D.
Captured and processed by Thiago Amaral
With the kind permission of the property owners.
Read the full listing on the New Zealand Heritage List, maintained by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
