[2]: 12 The original wallpaper and the ceramics recovered through archaeological excavations both illustrate Katherine's mother's interest in Europe's aesthetic movement.

The initial occupants were her parents; her two sisters, Vera and Charlotte; two aunts, Belle and Kitty, from her mother's side; and her grandmother, Mrs Dyer.

[5] The city had many deaths from infectious diseases like typhoid from the mid-1880s because of poor sanitation with sewage collected in open drains to the harbour.

Mansfield drew on memories of her childhood home in her short stories "Prelude" (and subsequent novel, The Aloe); "A Birthday"; "The Doll's House", and "The Wind Blows".

[note 2] Once detailed planning began in the 1950s, this house and its surroundings, along with much of this select part of Thorndon, suffered "motorway blight".

The Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society—founded in 1986[14] by art historian Oroya Day, Peter Young, and the architect James Beard—purchased the property in 1987.

[2] In the late 1980s, the society restored the house to its original condition, undertaking considerable research and relying on Mansfield's own descriptions as well as photographs and "archeological and architectural analyses".