Aucklanders have snapped up one of Wellington’s most significant modernist homes, OneRoof can reveal.
Tommy’s agent Wayne Sampson, who listed the three-bedroom property on Church Drive, in Wilton, told OneRoof he believed the purchasers were first-time buyers.
“I did quite a lot of the dealing with the parent,” he said of the deal he struck this month.
The striking home was designed by Czech architect Frederick Ost for Wellington resident Nancy Martin in the 1950s.
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Martin, an accomplished musician and academic, is remembered in the city as being the first single Wellington woman to obtain a mortgage, and her home still bears her name.
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Sampson owned the house himself for several years and sold it to the current owners, Ann Shelton and Duncan Munro, in 2013 for just over $600,000. He told OneRoof that Shelton and Munro had restored the home to its former glory and wanted to find buyers who felt the same way about it as they did.
“The wonderful thing is that the house [is] going to another set of caring hands. The buyers loved the house, they loved the architecture and are going to honour it. That made quite a difference to the vendors.
“The buyers can’t believe how lucky they’ve been. They were over the moon when they saw the house.”
The house is a standout example of mid-century architecture and had been lovingly restored by the vendors. Photo / Supplied
The property was designed by architect Frederick Ost for noted Wellington musician and academic Nancy Martin. Photo / Supplied
According to the listing on OneRoof, the vendors had been seeking buyer enquiries over $1.095 million.
Interest in the house had been high, said Sampson, with around 150 people coming to the first open home, and about 100 to the second.
Documents show Martin borrowed three thousand one hundred pounds in September 1957 from the Australian Mutual Provident Society in order to build the house. On the mortgage papers, Martin’s occupation was listed as “spinster”.
The original colour scheme of the house lay hidden until the house was rewired. Photo / Supplied
In her youth, Martin had travelled to Europe on a scholarship to study music and returned with a Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music, and British Scholar in music.
Her obituary in 2006 noted that she was at one time head of music at girls boarding school Solway College. She later worked for the Adult Education Department at Victoria University College as the university was called then.
She invested in New Zealand art and it is most likely through this passion that she met Ost, a Jewish architect who had come to New Zealand after escaping Nazi occupation in his native Czechoslovakia.
Shelton and Munro’s restoration of the property won two Resene awards in 2020: the Resene Total Colour Master Nightingale Colour Award and the Resene Total Colour Heritage Residential Award.
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