An east Auckland waterside mansion is on the market for the first time since 1965 is likely to fetch $13m or more when it sells next month.
New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent Karen Moore, who is selling the estate at 215 Bleakhouse Road, Mellons Bay, by tender, closing July 20, said it was hard to put a value on the neo-Georgian style double brick house which has a CV of $13.425m.
“There is only one other property in Mellons Bay with anything like the comparable land size, it’s hard to say how much value you place on that land,” Moore said, adding that the combination of the “absolutely charming” 1930s house, a huge English-style garden, a bush block with a private path to the beach and a tennis court, plus two other houses, was unique.
“It takes you back to Italy or England. With the curved steel windows and room layout, the house is pretty much original inside as it was built in 1937. Even the bathrooms still have their deco tile although they were updated in the 1960s and 1970s,” she said.
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“The dream is that someone will take on the whole thing, but someone might see it as the land value as it has good development potential.”
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The estate is well-known in the area as a hub for the charitable work of owners Dr Tony Hanne and his wife Christine since the 1960s, and has been Dr Hanne’s rooms for his medical practice.
Hanne, who arrived in New Zealand in 1964 with one pound in his pocket bought the property, known then as Fowey Lodge, in 1965 with friend for the then huge sum of 35,000 pounds. He bought out his friend. When he later married Christine their son Nick reckons she was overwhelmed at the size of the property her new husband had taken on.
The Fowey Lodge estate has been subdivided over the years since it was established in 1926, but is still a sprawling 1.18 ha on Bleakhouse Road, Mellons Bay. Photo / Supplied
The house has breathtaking views to the Hauraki Gulf and islands. Photo / Supplied
“But she loved it. It had been kept very well,” Nick said.
“The kitchen was just a butler's pantry for servants, hidden with no view, so Mum and Dad moved the kitchen to what had been the formal dining room with the best view.
“There were still the servants’ quarters, silver light fittings. There’s still the old bell system for the servants and the original heating panels in the ceilings.” The floor plans still show a library, multiple living rooms opening off the gracious deco-style foyer, plus an office and storage rooms that would have been the ‘downstairs’ working spaces.
“I’ve never seen anything like it even in the grand Remuera houses,” Nick said.
Many of the original features, including silver lights and ceiling heating panels, remain. Photo / Supplied
The kitchen was moved to the sunny side of the house to take advantage of the sea views. Photo / Supplied
Fowey Lodge was built by Auckland surgeon Arthur Eisdell Moore. In his memoirs, Eisdell Moore describes how the family bought the farm land on the cliffs near Howick in 1926 as a country cottage for weekends and holidays with their children. Fowey was named after the couple’s much loved honeymoon spot in Cornwall.
He notes that Bleak House Road was named in honour of the Charles Dickens novel. The story goes that Dickens was a cousin of Mary Maclean, one of the earliest farmers in the area with her husband Robert and brother-in-law Every, from whom he bought the land.
As the country estate began feeling more like home, the Eisdell Moore family built the grand house in 1937. Nick said he found faded blueprints in a cupboard, but unfortunately records of the name of the architect have been lost.
The Eisdell Moores were horse mad, accumulating ponies for the children’s gymkhanas and “hack” horses for riding with the Pakuranga Hunt, and hosting hunt meets at the house.
The deco bathrooms were updated with modern fixtures in the 1970s and 80s. Photo / Supplied
The library, little changed from 1937. Photo / Supplied
When he was growing up, Nick said a niece of the Eidsell Moore family still living next door supplied his family with stories of the gracious old days.
The tennis court, wisteria walk, decorative ponds and clipped hedges they developed by are still there, although Nick admits his family didn’t have the benefit of the retinue of indoor servants and two full-time gardeners enjoyed by the original owners. The servants’ rooms above the garage were always Dr Hanne’s surgery and offices.
However the 642sqm house never felt too big for the family, as he and brother Peter were joined by a rotating crowd of exchange students and visitors. Soon after they bought the property, the Hannes opened a bible study college on the ground that still operates today, building lecture rooms and dormitories and adding to the original 1920s cottage (it now has nine bedrooms, two kitchens and multiple living rooms; the dormitory another six bedrooms).
Bedrooms enjoy sea views through the original steel windows. Photo / Supplied
The house still has its English-style gardens, a full tennis court, and room for ponies. Photo / Supplied
Nick, his wife Tracey and their children have lived in the cottage the past 10 years, helping his parents and watching their two children enjoying free run of the grounds, the bush and the beach as he and Peter had done in their childhood. There is even a rock ‘swimming pool’ Eisdell Moore blasted out of the foreshore that fills with seawater for bathing.
But the home has been enjoyed not just by the Hanne family. Over the nearly six decades his parents have lived there, Nick estimates they have hosted some 3000 students and visitors from all over the world.
“It’s always been a busy house, it was never just the four of us,” he said.
Now in their 80s, his parents have downsized to a smaller house on land subdivided from the main estate as Dr Hanne gradually retires from his practice. The 1.18 ha property is in two titles, Nick said, so the main house and cliff-top grounds could be separated from land closer to the road.
And while selling the house after nearly 60 years will be hard for the family, Nick said we’re all very excited for the things we can go and do.
"We'll get all the kids and go and camp one last time, looking at the sea," he said.
- 215 Bleakhouse Road, Mellons Bay, has a tender closing July 20
