[5][6] The construction began when twenty patients from a nearby mental institution came to the site along with twelve wheelbarrows and ten shovels.

[12] In 1996, South Auckland Health sold Kingseat Hospital after government decisions to replace ongoing hospitalisation of mentally ill patients with community care and rehabilitation units.

This led to the eventual closure of Kingseat Hospital in July 1999, when the final patients were re-located off the complex to a mental health unit in Ōtara.

[13] After the closure of Kingseat Hospital in 1999, the grounds were initially considered as a potential site for a new prison, able to accommodate six hundred inmates.

[15] By 2004, more than two hundred people had come forward to file complaints against the national government for claims of mistreatment and abuse of patients at New Zealand's psychiatric institutions (including Kingseat Hospital) during the 1960s and 1970s.

[19] In 2013, a property developer revealed a plan to transform the site of the hospital into a countryside living estate with 450 homes.

[20] The promo for the 2014 season of local television show Shortland Street was partly filmed at Kingseat Hospital[21] as was a music video for I Am Giant.

[24] In 2010, New Zealand filmmaker Dale Stewart shot his horror film Compound at the former hospital property after receiving permission from Spookers, the current owners.

[32] In July 2013, there was a record outbreak of Dutch elm disease in two hundred trees at the site of the former hospital.