Huapai

Huapai is a locality north-west of Auckland, New Zealand. State Highway 16 and the North Auckland Railway Line pass through it. Kumeū is adjacent to the east, Riverhead is to the north-east, and Waimauku to the west.

Settlement at Huapai developed in the 1870s after the construction of the Kumeu–Riverhead Section, a railway on Te Tōangaroa that linked Kumeū to Riverhead. In 1914, Huapai was established as a rural housing estate, and promoted as a fruit growing area. By the 1940s, Croatian New Zealanders developed a winemaking industry at Kumeū and Huapai. Since the 1970s, Kumeū and Huapai have grown to become a single urban area, often referred to as Kumeū-Huapai.

By 1936, 303 people lived at Huapai, while 198 were living in Kumeū, and 113 in the surrounding rural area of Kumeū. Winemaking was established at an industry at Kumeū and Huapai in the early 1940s, led by Croatian families such as Nick and Zuva Nobilo, and Mick and Katé Brajkovich. Most notably for Huapai, the Nobilo family operated the Gilbey-Nobilo vineyard from Huapai, producing wine from Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinotage grapes.

By the 1970s, the fruit growing industry in Huapai became less profitable, after areas such as the Hawkes Bay became more efficient growers. During the same decade, industrial firms began opening operations in Huapai and Kumeū, during which the villages of Huapai and Kumeū began merging into a single urban area.