An east Auckland couple used two years of lockdowns to transform their 1990s house into an extravaganza of Italian design.
The sparkling, art-filled house at 24 Half Moon Rise, Half Moon Bay is now being marketed by Bayleys agents Jenny Benoy and Lawrence Liew with a tender closing December 9.
Luxury car dealer Ivan Han put his importing business on hold to project manage the complete rebuild of his family home with his wife Rachel, after travel was put on hold in 2020.
The family are now selling the 420sqm property on an elevated site with views to the Half Moon Bay Marina and Rangitoto to move to Tokyo, with their children aged 11 and 10.
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“I import expensive Italian cars – Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini – to sell to rich listers. We’d owned the house since 2014, but we’d never had the opportunity to do the renovation,” Han said.
“When the pandemic kept us in New Zealand we thought maybe it was time to start.”
The renovation began at the front entrance, and included imported marble-look tiles and eye-catching modern art. Photo / Supplied
Light fixtures were scaled up to size and customised for the space. All the principal rooms have views of the marina and sea. Photo / Supplied
Han told OneRoof he has been a member of Christies auction house for the last 10 years, buying up antique art and furniture, mostly French as a personal – and very expensive - hobby.
But the clean lines of the original house lent itself to a flamboyant modern Italian design (“I don’t like boring, that’s not my style”) , with a touch of Hollywood glamour.
Han approached the in-house interior designers of luxury custom furniture company Boco do Lobo, based in Portugal, Paris and Milan to design the top-to-toe makeover.
When local builders and developers told him the resulting luxury design finishes were too hard to do here, Han paused his luxury car business and spent two years full-time managing the renovation, importing his own furniture and materials and locating local craftsmen to do the fit-out.
“We didn’t move any walls or do structural things, it was mainly design. The tile guy spent nine months doing the floors and walls, all the furniture and the light fittings were bespoke as we changed the size and scale of pieces.
“It was hard to manage, but if they didn’t have the colour or the size or design, we designed it ourselves.”
The kitchen features a brass-clad island and a cupboard made from rare Phoebe zhennan wood from China. Photo / Supplied
Custom marble and brass tiles in one of the three bathrooms. Photo / Supplied
The Hans chose a glitzy palette of huge marble-look tiles on the floors, pure marble on the walls of the main living rooms, adding in the warmth of oak parquet, high gloss ebony and walnut feature walls. In the kitchen, the brass-wrapped island was imported, as was the rare Chinese Phoebe zhennan wood, once allowed only for emperors’ use, used in the kickboards and cupboards.
From the huge scale – the over-scaled front door and mirror clad entry – to the intimate – marble and brass tiles in the bathroom, brass sink and taps in the scullery – Han and his designers have worked on every detail and imported it to New Zealand.
The media room or study features gloss ebony walls and custom brass shelving. Photo / Supplied
The view from the principal bedroom. Photo / Supplied
The classical Italian-style swimming pool and tiled patio were the only things original to the house. Photo / Supplied
The classical Italian-style swimming pool and tiled patio, along with dramatic palm trees were already on the property, so did not need the glitzy makeover of the rest of the house.
He estimates the couple would have spent over $1m on the makeover.
The couple is selling the house with not only the built-in furniture such as the brass shelving and screens, but also the custom rugs, modern artwork and furniture. A favourite piece, a Swarovski crystal-encrusted big cat portrait may be subject to harder negotiation, Han laughs.
“My only regret is that we weren’t brave enough to do this straight away. Since we finished, we haven’t stayed there, I keep saying to my wife we should go and sleep there like it’s a fancy hotel.
“But now the borders are open we want to go live in Japan. I’ve been here 20 years since I arrived as a Uni student, now I want my kids to experience a big city like I did growing up in Shanghai.”
Bayleys’ Benoy said that it was hard to recognise the transformation of the ordinary house she sold to the Hans six years.
“The last owners would be blown away, nobody would have imagined,” she said, adding that she and Liew will be showing only qualified buyers through the house.
“This is a unique house and the CV [of $3.6m] is meaningless. It will be a very specific buyer.”
