Bricks, vodka, a hidden stream: restoring Wellington’s past to inspire its future

Friday, 10 October 2025

Beneath a rare Edwardian house on The Terrace, a long-buried stream still runs - and thanks to a loving restoration, it’s sparking fresh visions for Wellington’s heart.

Brothers Johnny and Robbie Thomson have modernised the brick dwelling at 97 The Terrace, once home to dentist Herbert Rawson, turning it into offices, a distillery and a bar complex.

As part of that process, project design guru Allistar Cox has been inspired to dream of daylighting the Kumutoto Stream and transforming Woodward Street and Midland Park into a lively social hub.

The Thomsons bought the 1906 building six years ago. It is the only domestic scale building left in the commercial segment of The Terrace.

Constructed of bricks, the lower floor was a dental surgery at 11 Woodward St, the top two storeys a house. It features a plasterwork of string courses and cornices.

While an 'unsympathetic' steel-clad attic was built over the original roof garden in the 1970s and a turret removed in 1949, the brothers have restored it faithfully, keeping its architectural integrity while strengthening it.

It was painstaking and expensive, with unexpected challenges when drilling through thick brick, as rubble-filled cavities snared drill bits, and water put in an unwelcome appearance in the basement.

“The original drill program was meant to take three weeks. I remember it taking a year, and then we had noise, and we had neighbours,” Johnny Thomson says. Internal drilling meant no visible steel bracing, but was “a pain, wow!”

“There were a huge amount of obstacles and roadblocks along the way and risks that we didn't expect to encounter, just simply because it was just such an old building and we wanted to stay true to what it was originally like.

“That in itself, is quite a challenge. With an old building or old house you should expect the unexpected … and every unknown comes with a cost, but you know … it has to be done.

“When you go through the building the thing that stands out the most is you really can't tell that it's been strengthened.”

But now it’s done, with three businesses operating upstairs on The Terrace, and a Woodward St complex of two bars and a distillery to open this month.

As the project unfolded Cox couldn’t help looking out at Woodward St, pondering how much more it could be than a walking backwater - an area to socialise alongside sparkling water, perhaps.

Kumutoto Stream flowed openly before urban development culverted it in the late 1800s. It was very significant to Te Āti Awa. Pre-1840s, it was a large, free-flowing part of Kumutoto pā, a food and irrigation source, with part of it tapu (restricted) for birthing practices.

All land seaward of Lambton Quay at the foot of Woodward St is reclaimed: between 1852 and 1973 over 155 hectares were added to the harbour’s south-western shoreline.

Until 1853 a Māori fishing village (Kumutoto kāinga ) was located at the mouth of the Kumutoto stream, where Woodward St meets Lambton Quay.

In his mind’s eye, Cox sees Kumutoto being “daylighted” in upper Woodward St, flowing under Lambton Quay to re-emerge in a planted haven down Waring Taylor St adjacent to Midland Park.

He envisages Lambton Quay being a single lane either way, with a central strip dotted with tables, people at them, talking, enjoying life, boosting the mood and economy.

“The idea is brutally simple. Think about your rituals and what you do as a group,” he says. There are two parts to it - the stream and tables.

“There’s a whole philosophy around the world about daylighting streams; it gives us space, it doesn't block us, it’s good for flood control, improved ecosystems, health, it revitalise the area, boosts property values and attracts visitors,” he says.

“And of course, the stream is … it would be beautiful. It's an attractive idea. Who doesn't want to sit next to a nice little stream? It’s sort of a no brainer, really.

“There's lots of reasons to do it, … in Zurich, they've been doing it for 20 years, opening them up, and cleaning them up.”

And tables in parks? Why does a park and Woodward St need tables?

“Socialisation,” Cox says. “The kitchen table at home… the city is the same.

“If you have a meeting and you're going to say, why don't we just meet in the park? The more seats you have around, the more people gather.”

Back to the cornerstone now, the distillery and linked bars, which the Thomsons decided on as the best option in a soft market, after offers that were either limited or uninspiring for the space.

And so the Woodward Street Distilling Company was born.

“No stone's been left unturned, so that the quality behind it, the team that Johnny and Robbie have brought together, it's top notch all the way through and the building,” Cox says.

“It prompted us to see how we could be really bold with our thinking.”

So, what was once a dentist’s reception will soon distribute anaesthetics of a different kind - among them their own ChiChi vodka, as well as a range of tonics and gin.

Johnny Thomson sees it as a blend of local heritage, distilling craft, social interaction, all highlighted by a brassy lady called Agnes, a 300-litre copper still that sits on display in the window.

Outside there will be a blend of heritage, urban ecology, and community regeneration, part of an urban renewal of central Wellington, a hub of traditional and modern coexistence.

The bar relaunch is planned for late October, with hospitality guru James Pask director and general manager, and globally experienced Mikey Ball as head distiller.

Cox was behind designs at venues such as Mighty Mighty, Matterhorn and Dragonfly, Pask a hospitality veteran connected with Matterhorn and Whitebait.

As Cox talks to The Post, he gazes down Woodward St, cobbled, mostly empty on a rainy spring day. At one end is a spinning top sculpture - rumoured on social media to be for the chop (it’s not) - and a strangely placed seat which tilts at the same angle as the steep footpath.

At the bottom, Lambton Quay.

“Who would sit there?” Cox says. “You stand here and watch, it is a very popular little street, but it's typically extremely dysfunctional.”

His mind casts back to what he’s seen overseas, in people friendly cities such as Barcelona, Zurich, New York and Seoul.

But the weather in Wellington is a bit rubbish, I offer. Cox is not buying it.

That’s a reason for adapting the vision to Wellington, it’s not a reason for not even trying. Cover is the answer.

“One of the weird things is that we're in Wellington, we're surrounded by hills, you look around these hills and go ‘there must be heaps of streams’, and there are, but there's absolutely zero of them in town.

“It just doesn't make any sense when you think about it, you're surrounded by hills and bush, and there’s no stream to be seen.”

Overseas cities that have daylighted streams have benefited from improved water quality, improved climate change resilience, more pleasing public spaces, and ecological benefits - biodiversity, the revival or natural processes.

A proud Wellingtonian, Cox says at times it is best to get on with city-improving change, rather than waiting for the authorities to act.

“The city hasn't actually evolved that much. It has gone backwards. But you know what? You eventually just get up and do it yourself. That's why I'm going with it.

“You don't actually have to wait. That is just an excuse. That doesn't stop you opening a great bar, it doesn't stop you doing great business, you just need to go do it regardless.”