Lees Grove appears to have been named during the 1950s after Andrew Lees (1872–1932), a financial backer of the Wainui-o-mata Development Limited. Lees was based at Okaiawa in Taranaki and never lived in Wainuiomata. Company records list him as holding a Class A bond valued at £110, with £10 recorded as paid on 27 May 1929. The street therefore commemorates an investor in Wainuiomata’s proposed development rather than a local resident.
Wainui-o-mata Development Limited was formed in the late 1920s after purchasing extensive areas of farmland around Fitzherbert Road, Wainuiomata Road and Main Road. Its directors envisaged transforming the largely rural valley into a planned garden suburb, connected to the Hutt Valley by a road tunnel through the eastern hills.
The scheme was financed partly through bonds such as the one purchased by Andrew Lees. Bondholders were intended to receive rights to residential sections once the development proceeded. Work began on the proposed tunnel in January 1932, but stopped after approximately 330 metres because of financial difficulties during the Depression. Although subdivision plans had already been prepared and sections pegged out, the company did not begin selling land until 1941, and the eventual subdivision followed a different layout.
Lees Grove fits a broader Wainuiomata naming pattern in which streets were named after the company’s directors, bondholders and supporters. Hine Road and Stanley Street, for example, were also named after people connected with the development company who did not necessarily live in the valley.
Lees Grove Track
The bush-covered hills remain an important feature of the street. The Lees Grove Track begins between numbers 72 and 74 Lees Grove and climbs towards the Rātā Ridge Track and Mt Lowry, providing access to the northern forest section of East Harbour Regional Park. The track itself was named after the street.
