An Auckland apartment that broke sale price records five years ago, when it sold off the plan for $9.25 million, is finally ready for its new owners to move in.
The 337sqm four-bedroom penthouse, which was snapped up by local buyers in 2018, comes with six stacked carparks, a media room, two lifts, a scullery and winter garden.
Developers LEP Construction have been busy putting the finishing touches to the Edition, a 19-unit luxury apartment block on Churton Street, in Parnell, with owners now taking possession of their flash new homes.
The Edition's $9.25m penthouse sale in 2018 eclipsed a $8.7m apartment sale record set the year before for a plush suite on Remuera Road, in Remuera.
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Another penthouse in the Edition also sold in 2018 for $8.5m, but Ross Hawkins, the listing agent for the developer, said both would be worth a lot more in today’s market.
“The resale value of those two would be $12m today,” Hawkins said. He is now selling the last five units in the block and bringing a sixth unit to auction as a resale.
Since the 2018, luxury apartments in Auckland have been easily fetching eight-figure prices. The 535sqm penthouse of The Elm in Remuera sold for $16.5m in August last year, while a penthouse in the Seascape, in the CBD, is under contract for $18.3m.
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Hawkins said that when building completion was delayed by 18 months just a few buyers chose to exercise their sunset clauses and pull out of their purchases. Most of the buyers will be moving in over the coming weeks. Buyers were mostly locals from the eastern suburbs who were ready to downsize from the big family homes but not ready compromise on luxury facilities or the finishes of a larger home.
“It’s exactly the profile we’d thought,” said Hawkins, adding that many had beach or Queenstown bases, or planned to travel for much of the year.
“They know architecture, they expect a good name,” said Rory O’Connor, general manager of LEP Group, the developer and builder.
The Edition plans garnered architects Monk Mackenzie an international architecture award for un-built projects from the Chicago Athenaeum, an international museum of architecture and design.
A two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor is going to auction on July 12. Photo / Supplied
Rooms facing the street are screened by a lattice of Italian glass blocks that provide privacy but allow in light. Photo / Supplied
Hawkins is bringing a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment on the fourth floor to auction on July 12 as a resale due to an owner’s change in circumstances, but said most owners who bought off-the-plan have inspected their apartments prior to moving in this week.
“I’ve sold a lot of apartments and for some of them, the dream is better than the reality, but these buyers are over the moon. Some of them have taken the option to have Bureaux [the interior architects] design custom furniture so their whole home is bespoke, custom-crafted.”
The five remaining apartments range from a 232sqm three-bedroom sub-penthouse asking for $7.35m, a third-floor 213sqm three-bedroom apartment looking for $5.95m, a 165sqm two-bedroom plus media room garden floor apartment with a 127sqm landscaped garden asking $3.595m and two other first and second floor two-bedroom apartments seeking $3.495m and $2.95m.
The upper floor apartments facing the sea come with internal covered decks, winter gardens that can be closed off with bi-fold glass doors as a sun room or opened up as a balcony.
The architects Monk Mackenzie won an international award for their cantilevered design that appears to float over the entry lobby. Photo / Supplied
The interior design was by Bureaux and included fumed oak and Italian marble finishes. Photo / Supplied
Most of the apartments have at least two carparks (there are 57 carparks for the 19 apartments) and roomy storage lockers to supplement built-in storage in the home itself.
O’Connor said that Monk Mackenzie’s specifications required some leg work. The company shipped in European travertine and solid marble for the floors and benchtops six months in advance to ensure the material was in the country.
The defining feature of the street side, a shimmering wall of Italian glass block, some 35,000 in all, required bringing installers over from Perth to achieve the look.
“We wanted something iconic, something that would stand the test of time. Monk Mackenzie pushed the design, they insisted we retain the cantilever effect of the upper floors ‘hovering’ over the entry to preserve the viewshaft from the street of Victorian houses around us.
“The kept the raw shuttered concrete on the first-floor apartments and there are 70 tons of steel holding up that cantilever,” he said, adding that to build the apartment today would cost way more as materials cost shot up over Covid.
The apartment block replaced an old brick backpackers house on the 1212sqm site. OneRoof records show it changed hands in 2016 for $3.9m.
Details specified by the interior architect Bureaux include dramatic feature light in the dining room from ECC, fumed oak joinery in the kitchen, bathrooms and media rooms, as well as feature built-ins in the dining room. Drama comes from the huge honed marble islands – even the smallest apartment has a generously scaled counter that doubles as dining, bathrooms have basins carved out of the stone.
The firm is well-known for its re-design of Remuera’s boutique restaurant and retail neighbourhood 1050 and has designed high-end homes in the exclusive Tara Iti estate.
The last six apartments in The Edition, on Churton Street, Parnell are on the market asking from $7.35m to $2.95m, with one going to auction July 12. Photo / Supplied
One of the two garden apartments is asking $3.595m. Photo / Supplied
- 4D/2 Churton Street, Parnell, is going to auction on July 12
