The school was constructed on the corner of Khyber Pass and Mountain Road, a site which had been given to the church for educational purposes by the Outhwaite family a pioneering family of Auckland. The family acquired the site in 1841. Isa Outhwaite, the last surviving member of that family, bequeathed the site of the college and also a part of the fund required for its erection. The Outhwaites, who lived nearby, had pastured livestock on the site. The dedication of the college to St Peter was not only a specific revival of the earlier St Peter's School in Auckland, but also referred to the first Catholic school in New Zealand opened in Kororareka in 1840 and dedicated to St Peter. The foundation also commemorated the beginning of the Catholic Church in New Zealand in 1838 when Bishop Pompallier arrived in New Zealand and set up the Marist Mission in the Bay of Islands.