In 1922 the Alison family, who owned most of what is now the Oneroa and Blackpool neighbourhoods, decided to subdivide the greater part of their lands to create a new “seaside suburb” of Auckland. In this they were attempting to repeat the previous year’s successful subdivision of their Browns Bay holdings which had created the newly-baptised village of Surfdale. Below is an advertising brochure describing the subdivision of the Matiatia-Oneroa Estate.
In spite of the name of the estate, the lands for sale did not in fact include Matiatia Bay. This the Alison family retained for their own use, living in the large house that would later become the Harbourmasters restaurant. They did, however, build the wharf that turned Matiatia into the island’s transport hub, and they built the road leading from the wharf to Oneroa. The Alisons sold the last of their Matiatia land in the 1960s.
The brochure reproduced below bears no date of publication, but the reference to Auckland’s “present population of over two hundred thousand” indicates the early or mid-1930s. On the reverse side of the brochure is a photograph of the ferry S. S. Duchess, which came into service in 1933.
This brochure was kindly donated to the Waiheke Island Historical Society by Rob Morton.
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