This cottage was constructed for Mrs E. S. Lemon in 1897. Mrs Lemon purchased this section from Mr Ramsbottom in April 1897, with Mrs Lemon, and also Henry Arthur Lemon, first listed as living at this location in Belt Road in the 1898 edition of Stone's Street Directory.
New Plymouth dentist C. H. Forte purchased the property in August 1900, and it was subsequently rented to Ernest George Frost.
DP1586, surveyed in late 1900, clearly shows the current house, with the section owned by C. H. Forte, and occupied by Ernest George Frost, who at the time was manager of the NZ Clothing Factory in New Plymouth.
It was reported in the Taranaki Daily News of 25 October 1900 that Frost had purchased a "five-roomed house, with freehold section, on the Belt Road" from Forte.
Frost also didn't own the property for long, and in the Taranaki Daily News of 14 December 1901 the sale of "Mr E. G. Frost's ¼ acre and 5-room villa on Belt Road to Mr Shirley [Alfred George Shirley]" was reported.
A particular feature of the property is the large andesite stone retaining wall on the street frontage; likely constructed around the same time as the cottage.
On the evening of Monday 20 August 2018, a tornado damaged the roof of the cottage, with several sheets of corrugated steel torn off - the roof was subsequently replaced.
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