Lake House Arts Centre

I have driven past this character house on Fred Thomas Drive many a time on my excursions out and about, and actually did pop in many years ago to find that there onsite café was closed that day.
However on this occasion they were open, and I got to attend a free pre school art class in the centre. Part of the summer community program for children in the pre school age range, my three year old and I attended a morning session for about half an hour, where we participated in weaving using different arts and crafts and decorating our pieces.
I got to meet other parents with little children and also au pairs.
Then after the fantastic class the children and parents, etc relaxed outdoors on the lawn with free toys from the community trust, just a great way to spend time with other mums with little children.
Lots of space for the kids to run about and let of steam, and they even had a permanent play tee pee and swing.
Inside the main building is a café where you can purchase food and drinks and sit inside undercover of the dining room, or deck, and even outside if it is a sunny warm day.
Good to know that there are classes that you can enroll your children in from school age five, somewhere that creativity flows freely.

I recently had a friend exhibit some art work here and was quite impressed with the place. Its a beautiful old heritage building on Barry’s Point Reserve in Takapuna so once you’re there you feel like you’re at a private estate in the country (ok maybe sometimes depending on wind direction you can hear the motorway traffic). I had previously thought it was just a gallery that local artists put their work in but its much more — basically a community centre only way more interesting. They have art classes for all ages and all sorts of free children’s programmes during the summer. Also really cool is every couple of years they host a wood-​sculpting event where you can go and watch sculptors create pretty large-​scale art pieces from raw wood over ten consecutive days. There’s a café onsite that caters and does functions and they have a few different rooms in the lake house itself that are available for venue hire too. This place is not just for the arty-​farty!