One of Auckland’s earliest and grandest homes has hit the market again after a year-and-a-half hiatus, but agents are tight-lipped about the price it might fetch.
When 100-year-old mansion at 60 Argyle Street, in Herne Bay, was listed in late 2021, the UP Real Estate agents handling the sale, Lisa Pringle and Ronald Lim, had expectations of a $10 million-plus sale price, but this time they are not talking price or CV.
The house was pulled from the market after three months, as Auckland laboured through its last, lengthy, lockdown.
“I remember going there with my mask on, the owners were still overseas,” recalled Pringle.
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“It was very weird times, and I guess people didn’t know which way the world was heading.”
The owners, who had bought the property in 2018 for $7.616m, had returned overseas in 2021, the agent said.
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The upper floor of the house, which has five bedrooms, a living room and grand covered sunroom porch, had been converted into a flat with a modern kitchen and bathroom some time in the 1980s, Pringle said, and had been occupied by tenants until the house went on the market in 2021.
On the ground floor, the rest of the bathrooms, kitchen, pantry and laundry, still in fairly original condition, are not shown in listing photos. But the rest of the house features stylish arts and crafts detailing in staircases, woodwork and fireplaces, complete with inglenooks, leadlight and stained glass windows and plaster cornices.
The six-bedroom house has original Arts and Crafts features, including a grand staircase and leadlight windows. Photo / Supplied
The property, zoned for suburban density, sits on 2107sqm of land and is close to Herne Bay beach. Photo / Supplied
The house has views to the Waitemata Harbour and is close to the entrance to Herne Bay beach.
And while the development potential of the 2107sqm of land the mansion sits on – it is zoned for suburban development – meant a new owner could take a wrecking ball to the property, Pringle, who is now marketing the property with Lim and Portia Pringle, said that enquiries this time were not from developers.
“We’ve had lots of enquiry from locals, at the moment it is all from people wanting a large family home,” she said, adding that recent renovations of big homes in the area have set a price benchmark of multi-million-dollar renovations.
In June 2021 developer Kurt Gibbons and his wife Makere sold their nearby Argyle Street home on the water for $22m after just two weeks on the market. Their $5m-plus makeover included a gut renovation, new swimming pool, tennis court and pool house. Two years earlier they had paid $$13.8m for the tired 1980s house on 2795sqm.
The upper floor of the house is currently a modern flat, but much of the service areas of the old house are original. Photo / Supplied
The couple had bought a $23.5m sprawling concrete Victorian villa on Marine Parade, and told OneRoof they plan to spend $7m on a Fearon Hay architect-designed renovation. They plan to increase the size of the house to 1000sqm and add a tennis court, gym, bar pavilion and more garaging on the waterfront property.
Last year, a four-bedroom villa with a pool on 1075sqm on Marine Parade sold for $11.5m, while fully-renovated mansions on smaller sites on Stack Street and Hamilton Road sold for $11m and $12m respectively in late 2021.
The listing for the six-bedroom 262sqm house, known as Craigmore, tucked up a driveway on one of Herne Bay’s premier streets, also highlights its zoning under the Auckland Unitary Plan.
The upper floor covered porch has views of the Waitemata Harbour. Photo / Supplied
The house features many original fireplaces. Photo / Supplied
“This substantial character home and land package comes with a wide range of options. It offers the prospect of land-banking, potential development or conversion back to the grand old homestead it once was,” the listing on OneRoof says.
The property’s Mixed Housing Suburban zoning would allow the owner to remove or demolish the mansion and build in its place multiple townhouses.
According to the latest OneRoof figures, the average property value in Herne Bay is $3.677m, up more than $650,000 on September last year.
At the time of the 2018 sale, some local campaigners complained that the house needed heritage protection to stop any future buyer from demolishing it as it is one of the few original houses to have the lucrative Mixed Housing Suburban zoning.
- 60 Argyle Street, Herne Bay, Auckland, is for sale by negotiation
