1920s house to be bowled for 17 townhouses near Hamilton Lake

A 1920s villa in Hamilton is to be bowled to make way for a new housing development within the next two weeks.

The old weatherboard villa on Ruakiwi Rd was built by former councillor Eric Day and his wife after World War I and will be replaced with 17 townhouses.

Day is most remembered in Hamilton for gifting Days Park on River Rd and which runs along the Waikato River to the city in 1951.

Yeoman Homes managing director Andrew Yeoman, whose firm is behind the housing development, said they had looked at relocating the property, but it contained too much borer and rot.

"We get an 80 per cent strike rate of being able to relocate houses... For this particular one it just proved not really doable."

Yeoman said feedback from several companies were that the floorboards and structure were full of borer and the cladding was falling apart.

Instead parts of the houses such as some floorboards, windows, joinery and doors would be recycled.

Salvageable items would be reclaimed from the house next week and it would be demolished within the next two weeks depending on weather.

Building on the new development would start within the next two weeks.

The development is called Ruakiwi Terraces and is being marketed online as premium terraced homes opposite Hamilton Lake. So far 10 of the 17 houses have been sold.

The townhouses comprise three double bedrooms and two bathrooms and are priced from $699,000, according to Yeoman Homes' website. The house sizes currently being sold are between 129sq m and 171sq m. The first row of houses are three storeys and include a basement garage, while the second row has just two storeys.

"All the garages are in behind... One of these things [learnt from research] is making the focus on a pretty building rather than a solid garage door, which can be boring really."

Overseas research showed having living spaces overlooking the street, then burglars were less likely to lurk around, he said.

Eric Day's son Murray Day said he accepted that change had to be made and the house was not heritage protected, but thought squeezing 17 houses onto the 2542sq metre section was a bit excessive.

"It had to be sooner or later. It's not a young house. You have to make room for progress."

Day, 86, who lives in a penthouse just a few streets away on Thackeray St, said the views from his apartment were impressive and believed the area was better suited to a high rise development.

"We would have the best view in Hamilton."

Day and his older sister Heather Bailey grew up in the house and both moved out in their 20s.

One of his first memories of the house as a young boy was that Ruakiwi St was not tar sealed due to the cattle always crossing so remembered it always being dirty.

His parents who later sold the house and moved to Hamilton Lake also did a lot of entertaining at the house, he said.

Day had lost track of who had owned it over the years, but recalled it being used by Waikato Hospital as a pre-release house at some stage.

Yeoman Developments has been behind a number of housing developments in Hamilton including Queen's Park near the Hamilton train station, Frankton's Village Quarter and Ridgedale in Rototuna North.

"I always remember when we started Queens and when we started Ridgedale out north, which we are still working on, that people had all these horrible comments about how it was going to be slums and stuff and we are proving them wrong," Yeoman said.