He’s 87, likes running, and is selling the family home he’s lived in with wife Judy for more than 50 years.
He’s also one of the most connected men in Auckland real estate.
Garth Barfoot, whose father Val founded Barfoot & Thompson more than 100 years ago, has put his four-bedroom waterfront home on the market for sale.
Naturally, the agency he’s using is one with his name on it. And surprisingly for someone who has sold a lot of homes in their working lifetime, this will be the first time he’s sold his own home.
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“We’re a one-house family. My father only sold one house too. In the old days, people only had one house,” he said.
The house at 130 Island Bay Road, in Beach Haven, Auckland, goes to auction on June 26 and is being marketed by Barfoot & Thompson agents Darcy Goodgame and Linda Teng.
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Garth and Judy bought the property in the early 1970s for around $12,000. Back then it was an empty 1606sqm section, one of several up for grabs in a new subdivision. The land had been carved off a former strawberry farm. The couple picked up an adjoining 1295sqm section at the same time, and that too is on the block on June 26.
“We were on the coast. It was a new area coming up as coastal Beach Haven, as opposed to central Beach Haven. In the time the children were going there, the college changed its name from Birkdale College to Birkenhead,” Garth said.
The couple commissioned architect friend Ron Paterson to design their new family home. Their only stipulation was that they wanted four bedrooms, not three, which was the norm at the time.
Garth Barfoot is as famous for his love of running as his family's real estate company. Last year he set the record as the oldest competitor in the New York Marathon. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The architect created an open-plan living space with a striking pitched roof of rimu that the builder called ‘the church’. Photo / Supplied
The deceptively simple design resulted in two identical square blocks – a single-level open-plan living room, dining and kitchen joined to a two-storey bedroom and garage wing by a flat-roofed entry hall.
Paterson designed the roof eaves with extra overhang for shade on the north and west, and less on the south to allow more sun, an unusual move for the time, Garth said.
Garth told OneRoof the builder had dubbed the living room’s striking rimu-lined pitched roof as “the church”. The open-plan space included an ahead-of-its-time brick fireplace integrated into a feature wall. While the kitchen has been refreshed over the years, much of the timber millwork on cabinets is original.
The couple made sure that the builders left some of the good farm soil on the property. “What the men talked about at morning tea on Monday was not football but how the tomatoes were growing, I used to grow the ones with larger fruits so I could take them into the office and show them off.”
The Barfoots bought the house and an adjoining section on the waterfront when the land was being subdivided off the original strawberry farm. Photo / Supplied
Much of the original joinery remains in the house. Photo / Supplied
By the time the couple moved in, their daughter Kiri was a toddler (last year she retired from her directorship of the family firm). The house soon welcomed two more children, son Henry, who now heads Barfoot & Thompson’s Milford office, and daughter Cushla, who is not in the business.
The property holds great memories for Henry, who described a classic kid’s haven of beach and bush, and swarms of kids running in and out of each other’s houses (several are still friends to this day, he added).
“It was a great place to grow up. We’d get home from school and go straight down to the beach in the summer, we used to catch snapper off the old wharf with bamboo poles,” he told OneRoof.
“We’d have great games of hockey on the back lawn, with little boards on the edge to stop the balls rolling down the cliff. My dad built a massive flying fox that was the whole length of the lawn.
“We’d all be playing at someone’s house and one of the mums had a whistle you could hear from our house. She’d blow it when it was time for her kids to go home.”
Garth said he was keen to let the house go, explaining that he and Judy had moved into the nearby retirement home 18 months ago. “I’m a lot keener to sell than I was. I’m quite prepared to say goodbye. And I’m quite happy to sell by auction,” he said.
Henry added: “The agents recommended a tender, but dad decided he’s quite happy to put his faith in the auction process. He’s quite adamant that it will sell at the auction, and for him the result is the result.”
Agent Darcy Goodgame said that it was hard to put a value on both properties, which have a combined CV of $2.64 million. Buyers, he said, were being told that the vendors were prepared to meet the market.
“It’s such a unique spot – the last piece of Island Bay Road. It’s the nicest street, there’s access to the water or the wharf to launch your boat, there’s swimming and the playgrounds. It really is the ultimate family option.”
- 130 and 134 Island Bay Road, Beach Haven, goes to auction June 26
