Vogel House at 75 Woburn Road, Lower Hutt, New Zealand, is a neo-Georgian-style home built in 1933.

The house was ultimately sold back to members of the Vogel family in 2019, after a legal dispute over who the government could sell or give the property to.

[2] The land changed hands numerous times until it was purchased by James and Jocelyn Vogel in 1932, who had married that year.

Jocelyn Vogel (née Riddiford) was the great grand niece of Governor Sir George Grey.

[5] As early as 1963 the Vogels were making overtures to the Government to present the house to the nation as an Official Residence for the Prime Minister.

[citation needed] In September 1965, the Vogels gifted the property to the Crown by a Deed of Gift, in which they declared they were “moved by their duty and loyalty to Her Majesty and by a desire to benefit her present and future subjects in New Zealand", and said they wished the land “be kept intact as an entity for such purposes as the Government of New Zealand may from time to time see fit.

[6] A condition of the gift was that the Vogels could remain in the property until their deaths, though they moved out of the house in 1966 to a residence in the Marlborough Sounds.

[citation needed] As the Government did not expect that the property would come into their possession for a number of years, little thought had been given to the future use of the building.

[citation needed] The Australian High Commissioner left the building in 1976, which allowed the Government to provide the property to the newly elected prime minister Robert Muldoon as an official residence.

Muldoon and his wife Thea lived at Vogel House from 1977 to 1984, and entertained guests there including members of the Royal family.

In the late 1980s, Minister of Internal Affairs Michael Bassett had 260 Tinakori Road restored to be the official prime ministerial residence, and it took on that role in 1990.

Instead, Land Information New Zealand decided that Vogel House should be sold on the open market and that the money raised be kept by the government, specifically the Crown consolidated fund.