The Palmerston North Working Men’s Club built its clubrooms on this site in 1904. However, when it (by then renamed the PN Cosmopolitan Club) built new premises next door, the front of their old building was replaced by this building. Meanwhile, the rest of the old building, renamed the Oroua Hall (and later the Red Cross Hall), remained behind it.
Erected in 1929 by Trevor Bros. for the Arthur Hopwood Hardware Company Ltd., Thorrold-Jaggard designed it as four shops, with six offices upstairs. However, the offices soon became five one-bedroom flats and a bed-sit. A narrow passage linked the Oroua Building to the substantial wooden hall that was effectively landlocked behind it. In 1963 the Cosmopolitan Club re-purchased the property and replaced the hall with a new billiard room. Two of the Oroua Building’s shops were amalgamated and another converted into a wider passageway to the new billiard room. The shop fronts have also been modified.
