Four apartments in a striking Grand Designs NZ project are up for grabs.
They join two other Grand Designs homes that are on the market for sale: a penthouse suite in the former tearooms of Auckland’s Farmers department store and a beach house overlooking the city’s rugged west coast.
The price of the recently listed three-bedroom luxury properties in Ponsonby’s Vinegar Lane precinct start at just over $2 million.
The apartment block starred in the show’s 2017 season. Owners Brendon Poole and Nikki Cliffe had planned a four-storey complex that had at the top of the building their dream home.
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However, the couple moved out soon after completing the project and are now located in the beach town of Muriwai, on Auckland’s west coast.
The show tracked how the budget for the apartment block escalated from $2.7m to close to $6m, and took five years before they could move in. The development is certainly high-spec and includes a rooftop deck with its own swim-spa pool and outdoor kitchen and views across the suburb to the Sky Tower.
Poole and Cliffe’s home was part of a master-planned development in Vinegar Lane, the former site of the DYC vinegar factory next to a new supermarket just off Ponsonby. Its design manual stipulated that different architects be used for adjoining sites – most measuring just 80sqm to 100sqm – to create a lively streetscape. The couple briefed Toa Architects, as the project timing blew out to almost five years.
Grand Designs host Chris Moller with owners Nikki Cliffe and Brendon Poole near the site of their Ponsonby development. Photo / Discovery
At the time of filming, Cliffe told then host Chris Moller: “We can live in it, enjoy it, but also it’s a business. We’ve got all these other levels to help us pay for it.” She added that design was the key to making the compact development work.
During that time the couple had a baby, prompting the move out of the city. The escape-artist toddler figured out how to scale the roof terrace’s glass balustrade, in a heart-stopping incident. He was safely rescued, but the couple decided to move to a safer beachside home out of the city.
The block’s penthouse was on the market for rent earlier this year, joining several others in the complex, but the couple have decided to put all four apartments on the market for sale.
The New York-style loft in the former Farmers tearooms above the Heritage Hotel that featured in Grand Designs 2020 season is for sale. Photo / Supplied
The Piha Road house that featured in the 2020 season of Grand Designs NZ. Photo / Supplied
Also on the market are two properties that featured in the 2020 season of the show.
The penthouse suite at the top of the Heritage Hotel at 35 Hobson Street, in Auckland, was listed in June and is for sale by price by negotiation, while a four-bedroom clifftop home at 81 Piha Road that was listed in August is seeking buyers with budgets of $4.599m-plus.
The 540sqm steel and brick New York loft-style apartment, built in the former heritage tearooms of Auckland’s Farmers department store, reportedly cost owners Steve and Bridget Varney $6m to buy and refurbish. The scene of glittering balls and parties since the 1990s, the tearooms had more recently been headquarters for All Black squads, as well as home to America’s Cup teams.
The ColorSteel, concrete and cedar house at 81 Piha Road took nearly two years to build as costs ballooned from the initial estimate of $1.3m to well over $2m, and counting, in the way of almost all Grand Designs projects.
That does not include earthworks and on-going landscaping for the project, which hit pause for 18 months in the middle of filming, before host Chris Moller and the crew returned for the grand reveal.
