Residential Villa, Kingseat

We were lucky enough to be invited into this family home, one of the many enormous villas situated within the sprawling Kingseat Hospital complex, to document the surroundings.

Kingseat Villa

History and Background

It was a beautiful, cool but sunny Sunday afternoon in April as we pulled up to the gates of this infamous relic of a Psychiatric Hospital. It’s a peaceful, serene kind of place considering its rather dubious and disturbing past. Pigeons warble in the giant Phoenix palm trees, the squeal of children playing in the distance, the scuttling of an unseen critter in the undergrowth. A car ambles along one of the maze-like roadways. Off in the distance a logging truck a rumbles along the long and winding Kingseat Road.

We had been invited into one of these immense villas to look around. We were welcomed by the father and a couple of his sons. The sons both had part-time jobs, working over at the Spookers Horror attraction. We sat for a bit and chatted over coffee, about the building, the Kingseat complex and their closest neighbours. Some of the villas are leased out to businesses, some are cheap rental homes for low-income families. Many are homes to hundreds of pigeons and the odd roaming gang of feral cats. The young kids spend much time playing amongst the empty structures, now deemed too dangerous for public entry.

The partly derelict hospital site is part of a larger area of land purchased in 1927 for the establishment of a new mental health hospital. Construction of buildings commenced in 1928 and continued through to the 1960s. In the mid 1960s the number of patients at the hospital peaked at around 1000. At a similar time the farm originally associated with the hospital was separated. The hospital closed in 1997.

As we walked from room to room and climbed stairs to further rooms and more levels, it fast became clear exactly how deceptively large these villas were. They look large and roomy from the outside.

Inside, the home becomes a Tardis-like megastructure. Stair wells, multi levels, divided sections toilet rooms, multi-shower rooms, bathing rooms, high ceiling upper levels. Huge kitchens and a myriad of ‘bedrooms’ to choose from. The villas are so large that a few families can reside together and still have room to breathe and spread out.

The family living here were well aware of the paranormal realm and joked somewhat unnervingly openly to me about the ‘spirits’ that make themselves known there. “They play with the kids,” we were told. Apparently they just let them live in peace and don’t bother them. They acknowledge their existence in the villa and yet are happy to live alongside them. “Sometimes we see them, but they don’t bother us at all, it’s all good,” we are assured.

We spent a brief but enjoyable hour with this family and have been told we are welcome back any time. Since then I’ve been back once more. Just as a fleeting pop-in visit on the way to an investigation at another part of the Kingseat Hospital complex.

To protect the resident’s privacy, we agreed to keep their name and villa number a secret. We also decided to not show photos the outside of the building.

Haunted Auckland Visited this Kingseat Villa on Sunday April 8th 2012.

 

           

12 Comments

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  5. Anahere Waimatuku

    OMG – whoever let children be housed in Kingseat has lost their everloving mind; minding if they ever had an ever loving mind to start with … the death; the rape; the molestation; the suicide; the torture; the pain; the suffering; the the deceit; the lies that cost lives; the misdiagnosis; the paedophilia; shall I go on – the DEMONIC ACTIVITY that oozes from the place & all the horror committed here … this place must be levelled & a garden of Memoriam must be placed here; no soul must live here; especially children … I drive past here regularly & never stop; I can feel the evil from my car as I’m driving along the road … this place is a place of DEATH … DISGUSTING GOVERNMENT GREED & DEVELOPER SLAVES …

    1. Anonymous

      Omg some people don’t care its always about money, i agree with you families with children or no children shouldn’t stay in a place thats haunted

    2. Jen

      I just spent some time wandering the grounds today for the first time. I took some photos of the derelict buildings that I later deleted, feeling I’d be cursed or something. What a mish-mash of a place. I was confused why so many of the complexes had cars out front. How could anyone live in these places? I still feel shaken. The complex with its 10 or more hiant almost Victorian buildings confused and overwhelmed. True story but I saw a two people pushing a kid’s stroller up ahead as I walked, even my dogs skipped up ahead towards them. They were only 50-60 meters away and nowhere to go but as I came around a big phoenix palm there was noone there and nowhere for those people to go/disappear behind. Still shook.

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