In a George St building, its owner extracted a fearful toll, writes David Murray.
The City Boot Palace! The name conjures up images of a vast array of footwear in a setting of Victorian opulence, perhaps presided over by some magnificently moustachioed manager.
It may not have been like that, but Dunedin's boot palace did have a touch of grandeur that set it apart from most George St buildings of the 1880s, at a time when the main shopping area was south of the Octagon.
The building was erected for Benjamin Throp (1845-1933), a dentist who occupied the upstairs rooms and leased out the lower level.
Born in Halifax, Yorkshire, Throp arrived in Dunedin with his mother in 1861 and qualified as a dentist in 1868. In the early days he used only hand instruments and his equipment and supplies had to be imported from England and the United States, often taking more than a year to arrive.
Up to 1900 the only anaesthetic he used was cocaine. He later produced his own nitrous oxide (laughing gas). He also made his own gold plate, having worked as a goldsmith during his youth in Australia.
Throp's meticulous notes, held in the Hocken Collections, record that he made 37,162 extractions over 37 years.
One day, when fitting the gold-mining entrepreneur Alex McGeorge with some false teeth, Throp was offered a partnership in the Electric Gold Dredging Company. This proved to be a lucrative venture that ultimately netted him between 20,000 and 30,000.
He retired in 1905 to take up farming at Moa Flat Estate, but his son Frank Throp continued the dental practice at the same address until 1942.
Two other sons were killed in action during World War 1. Another dentist, Andrew Aitken, kept the rooms up to 1958 and during this period the building remained in the ownership of the Throp family.
Architect James Hislop designed the building, erected on the site of the old Dornwell & Rennie butchery. Tenders were called in June 1885 and by the beginning of March 1886 Throp had taken occupation of his rooms. The Boot Palace opened soon afterwards.
The contractor was Arthur White and the cost about 2800, but White went bankrupt during the course of the contract because his tender had been too low and he found he couldn't afford to pay all of the creditors connected with the work.
The building has a foundation of Port Chalmers stone that rises above the footpath, and the two storeys over this are constructed of brick rendered with cement plaster.
An abundance of ornamentation includes pairs of Corinthian pilasters, arched and triangular hoods, and rustication. Originally, there was a bold and elaborate parapet with balustrades and pediments that balanced the composition. A pillared veranda for the George St shop front featured decorative cast ironwork.
The overall effect was a little more ostentatious than it was elegant, but nevertheless assured and effective.
The building is a good example of the later phase of Victorian Renaissance Revival architecture, which drew from increasingly eclectic influences combined in unconventional ways. Hislop provided another notable example of this a few years later when he designed the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition buildings of 1889 in a flamboyant quasi-Moorish style.
The City Boot Palace had been established in 1883, when it succeeded the business of the bootmaker John Elliott. The same name was used elsewhere in Australasia: John Hunter's City Boot Palace in Sydney opened in 1877, and both branches and separate businesses with the name operated in other Australian centres.
In New Zealand the boot palaces all appear to have been independent, although there may have been formal links between some of them. They included shops in Invercargill, Oamaru, Napier, New Plymouth, and Christchurch.
The Dunedin manager from 1885 to 1908 was Joseph McLoy McKay, who in the Edwardian period ran humorous advertisements emphasising bargain prices and the good value of his merchandise. Some featured the character ''Parsimonious Sam'', whose penny-pinching ways were satisfied by the deals on offer.
The Boot Palace ran for more than 40 years and eventually vacated the building in 1929. The premises were then fitted with new shop fronts with mahogany facings and granite, and a steel suspended veranda.
The alterations were designed by the architects Mandeno & Fraser, and the contractors were the Love Construction Company.
A women's clothing shop, Fashion Corner, opened for business in December 1929. It operated until 1958 when the ANZ Bank took the building as a branch office. It was about this time that the parapet ornamentation was destroyed and the St Andrew Street entrance moved. Old interior features also disappeared through numerous renovations.
In 1983 the architects Salmond & Burt drew up plans for a new bank building on the site but the scheme was abandoned.
After nearly 40 years the ANZ consolidated on a new location in 1997. The ground floor is now occupied by the clothing retailer Jay Jays, making it once again a ''fashion corner''.
Most of the external character remains intact, and with some restoration perhaps the building will one day reiterate the vivacious architectural statement it made in its early years.
Read more from David Murray at builtindunedin.com.
