Famous dance hall sale provides a juicy opportunity to relive memories

An historic building which was the centre of Auckland’s big band and jazz dance scenes for several decades, is up for sale… carrying with it a slice of the city’s social history.  

The Orange Hall, or the ‘Orange’ as it was simply known, was immortalised in the 1958 Peter Cape song Down the Hall on Saturday Night mentioned in the line: “We’re as slick as the Orange in Auckland.” 

Before the advent of television and other forms of entertainment in the latter half of last century, ballroom dancing was a popular and regular social event with the Orange’s dance floor - thought to be sprung and made of tawa - regarded as the best in Auckland. 

The Orange’s heyday was in the 1940s, with the dance hall packed, and queues stretching down Newton Road. During World War II especially, the Orange opened its doors six nights a week to the crowds queuing four deep down its steep steps and along Newton Road. 

Long-running tenants and users of the dance hall included Arthur Skelton and his Dance Band and the Beau Regarde Dance Club. Arthur Wheelhouse, Skelton's partner, recalled in the 1987 Herald article how dance halls, such as the Orange Ballroom, helped to start the careers of New Zealand musicians and entertainers, such as Mavis Rivers, Bill and Boyd, Howard Morrison and Kiri Te Kanawa.  

Tom Sharplin is said to have developed his distinctive ‘one legged’ rock and roll style at he Orange. The band of Auckland musician Bill Sevesi, who received the Pacific Islands Artist Award in 1997 for his contribution to the development of the Pacific Islands arts in New Zealand, played at the Orange for 23 years from 1958 to 1981. 

The supper room below the dance hall area catered for the crowds and even up to the late 1980s still served sandwiches, cakes, tea and coffee. No alcohol was allowed on the premises by the owners - the Auckland Orange Hall Society. 

The advent of late night closing and bands in pubs signaled the beginning of  the end of an era for dance halls, and 1987 saw the  ‘last waltz’ in the Orange ballroom. In subsequent years it was occupied by the Performing Arts School, who repainted its trademark interior orange colour cream, and in more recent years by the City Christian Church. 

The church relocated to another building last year, prompting the decision by the Auckland Orange Hall Society to put the property up for sale. The society now uses other premises for its meetings and the property is surplus to its requirements. 

The Orange Hall was built in a number of stages. The original hall was designed in 1922 by A. Sinclair O'Connor and completed the following year for the Orange Lodge which was established in Auckland in 1840. Among the duties of the lodge’s trustees were "to promulgate the principles and further the practice of the Protestant Religion and to afford its members the means of social intercourse, spiritual improvement and rational recreation.” 

Lodge members had originally been meeting in the Protestant Hall in Karangahape Road before this, but sold that hall to construct the Newton Road premises. The hall was altered in 1937, again to O'Connor's design, with the addition of a parapet roof and redesigned top storey. A further extension was added in 1957, to the design of another noted Auckland architect, Clinton Savage.  An Auckland City Council heritage overview of the property says most of the combined 1922-1937 exterior design features appear to still be present.  

The 743 square metre building located on Newton Road is on the market for the first time since it was built in the early 1920s and is being marketed through leading real estate Bayleys. The Orange Hall is for sale by private treaty, closing on February 24, through sales consultant Bill Fenton and Harold McCracken. 

Bill Fenton says the interior of the building has been well looked after by its various tenants and had been maintained in very good order - with many of its features still in intact including the dance floor which was replaced in 1954. He says the property will appeal to investors with an interest in character buildings and owner occupiers.  

“We’ve already had a lot of interest from owner-occupiers, particularly from people within the entertainment industry - some of whom have fond memories of the Orange,” Mr Fenton said.   

“The hall's corner site and position on the Newton Road slope means it has excellent exposure to a very busy road and is also readily visible from Symonds Street. It’s only a short drive from the CBD and is close to popular CBD fringe locations such as Ponsonby, Grafton and Newmarket.”   

Fellow agent Harold McCracken said the upper Symonds Street area near to The Orange had undergone a substantial redevelopment into a more intensive mixed use residential and commercial precinct - with a mix of older Victorian and Edwardian character buildings, developed from the 1880s to the 1930s, and newer complexes. 

The rejuvenation of the area has extended into Newton Road with the old Masonic Hall adjacent to Orange hall having been refurbished and transformed into the Roundhouse recording studios by Neil Finn.