Browns Bay Beach Reserve

The grassed strip bounded by Beach Front Lane and the shoreline presented a very different appearance in earlier years. By the 1930s, the beachfront was dotted with baches, many of which would later be extended or replaced to provide more comfortable housing for Browns Bay’s increasing resident population. From around the 1960s, the council began purchasing beachfront properties to provide a seafront reserve.

Historian Michael King lived in a house on the beachfront in the 1980s, where he enjoyed his view of the sea:

"Looking eastwards across the gulf, shops and houses out of sight and mind behind us, we could be a hundred miles from suburbia. Rangitoto, Motutapu and Rakino slumber on unchanged, Coromandel lies along the far horizon like a great whale." Metro, January 1986, p. 55.

The former King residence was purchased by the council in 2004 and demolished to complete the beachfront park.

Continue along Beach Front Lane.