A glamorous house in Auckland’s Herne Bay that’s on the market for sale with a movie star secret.
The four-bedroom villa at 306 Jervois Road was the backdrop to several rip-snorting moments in the hit Kiwi comedy The Breaker Upperers.
Stars Jackie van Beek and Madeleine Sami can be seen relaxing by the villa's outdoor pool in the movie, while the bathroom is utilised for a hilarious scene involving drugs.
The movie, which was also written and directed Van Beek and Sami, follows their characters' adventures as they set an agency dedicated to breaking up couples. It was produced Hollywood heavy weight Taika Waititi and co-stars comedians Rose Matafeo and Jemaine Clement.
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“I'm not sure if it’s a real claim to fame,” laughs the villa's owner, Scott Bradley.
“The producers told me they didn’t have the budget for the real thing in the bathroom scene. They used the pool for the shoot, the marble bench top in the bathroom for the cocaine scene and downstairs was transformed into a dining room for a scene.”
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Bradley and his wife Bex had not long been in the stylishly renovated villa they’d bought in 2016 when there was a knock on the door from a location scout for the movie.
“They had photos of the property through the years. We were told that the house was built by the Cashmore family, who had the mill on Coxs Bay. They milled kauri for the house down there,” Bradley said.
The four-bedroom 434sqm house, one of a cluster of grand villas on the quiet cul-de-sac end of Jervois Road, overlooking Coxs Bay, has been renovated by a series of previous owners, who made the most of the heart kauri construction, the size of the section, a generous 1391sqm, and the mature puriri and pohutukawa trees that surround it.
The bathroom featured in one the best scenes of the hit 2018 comedy The Breaker Upperers. Photo / Supplied
Jackie van Beek, left, and Madelaine Sami at the premiere of the movie. Photo / Supplied
Earlier owners built a vast three-car garage with workshop on the ground floor rear of the property, which they topped with a swimming pool, terrace and gazebo. It means the pool is only three steps down from the family and dining rooms, while the corner gazebo is high enough to capture views across the valley to Westmere and all the way to the Waitakere Ranges – and giving the parents a great view of the kids, now 13 and 11, in the pool, Bradley said.
He said that after undertaking a couple of huge renovations of houses in nearby streets of Herne Bay and Saint Marys Bay, his family was happy to settle in and make just cosmetic changes to the Jervois Road house. That included bringing in a giant slab of black and white Copacabana marble that is the centrepiece of the kitchen island.
But after 14 years in the area, the family has relocated to Wanaka so their ski-mad daughters can go to school there.
Andrew Wall, of Wall Real Estate, who with his brother Ollie Wall is bringing the property to tender closing Wednesday, September 20, said they expect the home which has a CV of $8.2m to sell for over $10m.
“Interest has been pretty good and we have a few contenders lined up,” Andrew Wall told OneRoof.
The marble kitchen island was one of the cosmetic updates made by the current owners, who have now relocated to Wanaka. Photo/ Supplied
The property has a 2021 CV of $8.2m. Photo / Supplied
“We’re seeing a lot of Remuera moving west, even those with kids. Most of the private schools have buses, if you go past Herne Bay Road corner on a school morning it looks like an outpost of Kings.”
The Walls are also selling a neighbouring house on 290 Jervois Road, which features a dining room ceiling papered in a baroque-style scene that’s biblical in both theme and scale.
The wallpaper, A Priori, created by on-trend design firm Rebel Walls, is a modern interpretation of a baroque-style painting that depicts the fight between “good and evil, light and dark”. It’s quite the conversation starter and is one of the standout features of the stylish villa.
Wall said properties of this calibre in Herne Bay are always sought after and rarely available.
The company sold a similar place on Hamilton Road in October 2021 for $12m while a non-waterfront home on Marine Parade sold in September 2022 for $11.5m, as part of a $40m chain of deals brokered late last year.
- 306 Jervois Road, Herne Bay, Auckland is for sale by tender, closing Wednesday September 20
