Furnished and decorated much as it was when the Theomin family lived there, Olveston Historic Home offers a snapshot of upper-class colonial Edwardian life in Dunedin. Ernest George designed the house in the Jacobean style in the early 20th century. When Dorothy Theomin died in 1966, the house, garden and contents were gifted to the city.
The Theomins were avid collectors, and their art, furniture, weapons and decorative objects can be seen throughout the rooms. The gardens are of national significance in their own right.
Heritage New Zealand protects the house with a Category I registration and regards it as "an outstanding illustration of Jacobean design and one of New Zealand's grandest urban houses". The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner called it "an extremely interesting and very grand house". The property lies within the city's Royal Terrace-Pitt Street-Heriot Row Residential Heritage Precinct. It suits visitors drawn to architecture, period interiors and the domestic life of a wealthy Edwardian family.
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