TOWN IMPROVEMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 August 1922, Page 9

TOWN IMPROVEMENTS.

TARANAKI CLUB. COMMODIOUS AND COMFORTABLE. When the Taranaki Club’s new premises at the corner of Queen and St. Aubyn Streets, New Plymouth, were opened recently, only a few of the furnishings had been placed in position, but every day since has seep some change, and now the club is beginning to showsigns of homeliness and hospitality. Viewed, from the outside the building bears some resemblance to the fascinating rambling houses of the old colonial amp-or-dn aroui jo inq tion. Standing on an elevated section, the club’s own freehold, at the corner of St. Aubyn and Queen Sts., its rough cast concrete, with white facings and its many windows, presents a. picture of solidity combined with daintiness, a picture which is more impressed as one ascends the broad steps on to the entrance porch and is met with the leadlights of the main entrance hall and a glimpse of the main lounge is caught from out the corner of the eve.

Passing through the inviting entrance the visitor steps on to a pleasing pattern of “rub-lino,” a New Zealand manufactured linoleum, and if his business be anything but pleasure bent, goes right ahead to the club office. If he be a guest, the guest book is close handy, and bearing slightly to the left is a large room ’ for coats and hats. Go through this room and the click of billiard balls will greet the ear, or turn sharply to the right and an entrance is effected to the main lounge. Here are , papers and magazines and easy chairs and chesterfields with which and in which to while away an hour, while through a door next to the huge fireplace is a well appointed writing room where one can attend to correspondence in quiet. From the lounge and from an inglenook in one of the writing rooms the eye may roam far over the sea. but the railway station down below will act as a brake and bring the wanderer back to things mundane. Adjacent to the lounge is the bar lounge, and through it the bar itself, comfort beina - provided at all points. It is in the billiard room, however, -where the architect (Mr. T. H. Bates) has achieved his greatest success. There are three tables and the lighting has been so arranged that by day the light is diffused from skylights evenly over the three tables, so that there is no possibility of shadow disturbing the expert cueist. At night electric lights are lowered by special fixings to a convenient height above the tables, while around the room are the usual couches and chairs for those looking on. Ventilation is effected through louvres high up in the walls.

Handy to the entrance and the lounge are lavatories and a bathroom fitted with all the latest conWivances. while on the far side of the club office are a couple of card rooms. Detached from the main building are the stewards’ quarters, with bath. etc., and the furnace, which ensures a plentiful supply of hot water at all times.

The interior decorations of the club arc done in fibrous plaster and polished heart rimu, and the heavy overhead beams and the doors and lesser wood work form an harmonious whole which is particularly attractive. Fire-places abound and there has been no stinting of electric lights, all of the push* button type. As Mr. Webster, the president of the club, said when taking over the building, it is a credit to the members, the architect, the builder, and the town. The decorative work, by the way, is a feature that adds to the general pleasing effect. It was carried out by the local firm of O. le Page.