The Ford House, 4 Garden Road

Reginald Ford designed and built this house at 4 Garden Road Remuera for himself in 1926. It is described as “a colonial neo-Georgian timber house”.

The house was the first of several Ford designed in Auckland for his family e.g. in Westbourne Road and for his sister at 99 Remuera Road. After Ford’s wife Edith died in 1937, the house was subsequently sold and has had several owners. [1]

It has Category 2 listing with Heritage New Zealand (no.601) and Category B with Auckland Council’s Historic Heritage Schedule (no. 1659).

Ford (1880-1972) was born in England and served in the Royal Navy. He was later with Captain Scott’s 1901-04 expedition to Antarctica, serving as steward and as assistant to Scott. Ford then trained as an architect working in Wanganui and also as an engineer. In 1926 he wrote the first treatise on earthquakes and building construction in the English language. [2]

Ford moved to Auckland in 1923 and formed a partnership with W. H. Gummer. Ford and Gummer’s practice became one of the most successful in New Zealand between the two world wars. Ford was essentially the business manager and organiser and Gummer the main source of architectural ideas. The two partners shared the first NZIA gold medal ever awarded in 1928 for the Remuera branch of the Auckland Public Library on Remuera Road; they won another in 1931 (with F. Gordon Wilson) for the Auckland railway station. [3]