Sir Chris, first Ōtaki knight

Sir Chris, first Ōtaki knight

The Ōtaki College old boy knighted in the New Year Honours, Sir Christopher Parkin, KNZM, has left his mark in the capital along with the scholarships that bear his name at his old school.

Entrepreneur, philanthropist, collector, patron of the arts, former hotelier and three-term Wellington City councillor, Sir Christopher is believed to the first person raised in Ōtaki to become a knight or dame.

He developed a career of variety that demonstrated education in a small Kiwi town was no barrier to success in the wider world.

In May 2018, when he was inducted into the Ōtaki College Hall of Fame, Fraser Carson noted at the ceremony: “… he is an exceptional New Zealander, a true Wellington patriot and someone that Ōtaki and this college should be very proud of”.

Fraser quoted an old friend of Sir Christopher, Wellington developer Rex Nichols, who said: “Chris is an extremely excellent choice as a distinguished member of Ōtaki College’s Hall of Fame. He sets a fitting example for future Ōtaki students and graduates and would be a valuable person for Ōtaki to use as one of its examples of what can be achieved by a student from a small provincial town.”

The inscription for his New Year honour as a Knights Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit read: “For services to philanthropy and the arts.”

Sir Christopher, when interviewed by Otaki Today, reflected that the honour was definitely a surprise, “but you do get plenty of warning. And when you look back over your career and what you have done it is very satisfying.”

He said his approach to philanthropy was to get involved where he could see results directly, rather than with buildings or objects.

“I am working with the principal of Ōtaki College [Andy Fraser] and will do some more, seeing how we can raise achievements. I like to achieve results.

“It is a long time since I’ve been a student, but the character you form in a small town stays with you and moulds the rest of your life. But what you eventually do depends on tenacity and drive. A better education certainly helps.”

Sir Christopher was born in Doncaster, England, in 1948 to George and Olive Parkin. His family moved to Ōtaki four years later, where accountant George, along with Keith Knox, formed Knox and Parkin accountancy firm. Sir Christopher graduated from Ōtaki College in 1966.

He bought his first property at the age of 23 while still a student at Victoria University. He paid $12,500 for it and sold it a few years later for $30,000. Following graduation, he worked with a manufacturing business before joining the then Development Finance Corporation as a financial analyst. The DFC opened an office in San Francisco, and he moved there for four years, marketing New Zealand business advantages to American companies.

It was on his return in 1983 that he moved heavily into property development. Blocks of apartments were bought, renovated, and then sold. A decision in 1992 when he bought the Michael Fowler Hotel from the government brought him headlines.

The following year he moved the hotel across the road along a specially constructed rail line from its location to make way for Te Papa Tongarewa – the Museum of New Zealand. The hotel was at that time the largest building in New Zealand to be relocated and was renamed the Museum Hotel.

He sold the hotel in 2015, but it retains the name and continues to house his large private collection of contemporary New Zealand art – more than 110 items collected over about three decades.

An incursion into politics in 1994 saw him become a branch chair of Act, but a year later it was local body politics that captured his attention and he served for three terms on Wellington City Council, from 1995 to 2004, before standing down.

Sir Christopher is reported in Wikipedia as having left wing views when he started university but after studying economics moved to the right, saying in 2020 that he was a socialist until he understood more about human nature – “you realise the futility of any political system that depends totally for its success on the goodwill of people toward each other. It is human nature that stops socialism from ever succeeding.”

He served on the board of Te Papa, as well as on several charitable organisations and a list of arts trusts that included the St James Theatre, the Hannah Playhouse and New Zealand Affordable Arts. Along with Ōtaki College, the New Zealand Drama School, Wellington Sculpture Trust, and the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts have been beneficiaries of his generosity, with the Parkin Drawing Prize being a national art competition open to all New Zealanders. Another is Boosted, a crowd-funding platform for artists.

Awards and honours came his way through the 1990s and on into the new millennium. He was Wellingtonian of the Year in 1993 after his success moving the Museum Hotel. In 1995 Victoria University, from which he had graduated with a master’s degree with honours and a bachelor of commerce, gave him an award for an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the institution.