Provenance:
Private Collection, Auckland

Illustrated:
Plate 5, The Lively Capital, Una Platts, Avon Fine Prints, 1971
Front Cover, A Fine Prospect, A History of Remuera, Meadowbank and St Johns, Jenny Carlyon and Diana Morrow Random House, 2011

When Alfred Sharpe painted this enchanting picture of the sunlit slopes of Remuera and the harbour beyond, he was probably sitting on the verandah of David Graham's The Towers, built in about 1855 on the Remuera or Tamaki Road. Ellerslie House, belonging to his brother Robert and built in 1853, was not far away, and the road Ladies Mile was made to provide easy access between the two homes. These were only two of the large, rather ostentatious houses to be built at about this time in the outer suburbs. The complex of buildings a little to the right betokens one of the prosperous farms in the neighbourhood. The houses on the waterfront would have been somewhere in the area of what is now Burwood Crescent. In 1872 The Towers was bought by James McCosh Clark (the son of Archibald Clark), who already owned property contiguous to it. In 1896 it became the home of the newly established King's College; in 1922, when the College moved to Otahuhu, it became King's Preparatory School. Text: The Lively Capital, Una Platts Avon Fine Prints, 1971