Award-winning New Zealand author Eleanor Catton can add real estate success to her list of achievements.
Catton, who in 2013 became the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Man Booker Prize for her historical epic The Luminaries, sold her Auckland bungalow this week for $1.7 million after receiving multiple offers.
The four-bedroom 1920s bungalow in Mount Eden was snapped up by a local family wanting to get a foothold in the city’s prized double grammar school zone.
Catton bought the property in 2014, for $1.22m, soon after she won the £50,000 Booker Prize. She lived there with her husband Steven Toussaint before moving to the UK in 2019.
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Barfoot & Thompson agent Sara Knight, who brokered the deal, said Catton was over the moon with the sale.
“She’s really thrilled,” Knight said.
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The Charlton Avenue house, which boasts spectacular views from the top lawn, had passed in at auction earlier this month, but Knight had multiple conditional offers on the table soon after.
“This is a cross-lease [property] and needs work, so buyers needed time to get a building inspection,” she said.
The two-storied bungalow on Charlton Avenue, Mount Eden, sold for $1.7m this week. Photo / Supplied
The 1920s bungalow had a bookshelf-lined living room, original woodwork, fireplace and leadlight windows. Photo / Supplied
The house sold below its 2021 CV of $2.325m, with Knight noting that finding a house in the suburb for under $2m was rare.
“You don’t get many houses here in that price range, only cross-lease,” she said.
The Arts and Crafts character bungalow still retains its original timber floors and leadlight windows. The bookshelf-lined living room and dining room are a heavy hint of Catton’s passions and both feature the original pocket doors and fireplace, as well as a bay-window seat.
The four-bedroom house on a cross-lease site had multiple offers from families keen to get into double grammar zone at a good price. Photo / Supplied
The two upper floor bedrooms and family room open to a bricked patio and yard terraced with volcanic stone, with an upper-level lawn. Knight said there is also a garden studio that could be transformed to an artist retreat.
Catton is currently promoting her next novel, Birnam Wood, a satire-cum-thriller set in New Zealand which, fittingly, revolves around the Kiwi obsession with property.
She recently told the New Zealand Herald that her sudden rise to global stardom had forced her to put a fence around her private life and give up social media.
“I made a pledge that I was not going to Google myself ever and every year that passed I could say that I’d been sober for that long. It’s been about six years now, so I think I can say that’s been very necessary for my mental health.”
The Luminaries sold some 1.5 million copies worldwide and Catton later adapted it for a six-part TV series for the BBC.
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