DRESS CIRCLE

Sharing the site of some of Auckland’s first pine trees stands one of the country’s original residential high-rises. As strong in stature as a grand evergreen, the 10-storey ivory apartment building, affectionately named The Pines, has overlooked its private parkland for 50 years as the city has risen-up around it.

The 2.8 hectares of historic grounds was first granted to natural historian and co-founder of Auckland Museum, Andrew Sinclair, in 1856. Thanks to generations of care, the terraced garden, including part of Mount Eden’s volcanic cone, is protected as a special ecological habitat for birds and other fauna.

Overlooking it all on the ninth floor is the