This house in Bracken Street was built about 1912-13 for New Plymouth businessman Charles Stuart Curtis. At the time the road was known as Glen Road - the name changed to Bracken in the early 1920s.
It was designed by the Stratford architect Mr. J. D. Healy. The choice of Healy was likely a reflection of the many years Charles Curtis had spent in business in Stratford. The house featured prominently in a full-page montage of "beautiful homes of New Plymouth" in the Auckland Weekly News. (Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19140226-41-1)
The author Helen Brown was brought up in the house and reminisced about her upbringing there in a Taranaki Herald article in 1987.
When the house was advertised for sale in 1978 it was described as containing two self-contained units - "easily converted into a five bedroomed home."
The house sold for $50,000 to Peter and Jocelyn Rich.
Category A Heritage Building - N.P.D.C. District Plan.
Related items:
Town Belt (Part) B, Taranaki Land Deeds Index I14 page 826. (Archives New Zealand)
Taranaki DEED26 Sheet 1 (1921), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)
Taranaki DEED45 Sheet 1 (1927), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)
Taranaki (Lot 6) DP6915 Sheet 1 (1951), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)
A picturesque residence (Stratford Evening Post 3 March 1914)
Glen Stuart (Taranaki Herald 23 September 1972)
Glen Stuart (Taranaki Photo News, 15 December 1972, Issue #201)
Maintenance money for heritage buildings (Daily News 14 December 2000)
A matter of life and death (Taranaki Daily News 18 March 2014)
The architectural legacy of John D Healy (Taranaki Daily News 22 June 2019)
Gone With the Wind (Live Magazine Summer 2020)
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