- Cameron Ireland and Rachael Newnham sold their Grey Lynn home for $5.5m, $100,000 above RV.
- The award-winning house, designed by Jack McKinney Architects, features a 56-tonne cantilevered concrete roof.
- The buyers, a local family, were drawn to the home’s size and four-car garage.
The Auckland couple who have done more high-end builds and renovations in the city’s wealthiest suburbs than most have sold their own home for $5.5 million – $100,000 above RV.
Start your property search
Builder Cameron Ireland and his interior designer wife Rachael Newnham have been lauded for their work in Ponsonby, Grey Lynn and Herne Bay. But it was their five-bedroom, award-winning home on Schofield Street, in Grey Lynn, that had buyers excited at a Bayleys’ auction this week.
The striking concrete house, which was named Home of the Year in 2019 soon after it was built, attracted a lot of interest during its three-week campaign.
The house, known as Diagrid house, features a concrete and steel diamond ceiling that pours light into the living room. Photo / Supplied
The swimming pool features a standout tiled wall. Photo / Supplied
Bayleys agent Robyn Clark told OneRoof: “I had a lot of people look at it, 90 groups through in three weeks. I always expected interest to be round the CV of $5.4m,” she said.
“Everyone said you couldn’t build that house now for what it sold for – everyone knew that.
“The house was concrete and steel. It’s not going to fall down,” she said, adding that it had been built for the family to live in, not as a spec project.
Discover more:
- Hollywood duo selling their NZ bolthole - ‘they spent crazy money on this property’
- $6m’s the new normal: Family snaps up huge Christchurch estate for top price
- Star architect's quirky waterfront 'palace' for sale
The bidding at Wednesday’s auction opened at $5m, and then paused for negotiations before being announced on the market and sold at $5.5m.
Clark said the buyers were a local family who were looking to upgrade to something bigger. “What appeals to men is that it had a four-car garage, lots of room for storage,” she said.
“The buyers were right there from the beginning. They really wanted to buy it so we all worked together to secure it for them. Everyone’s very happy.”
She said there were a lot of buyers out in the market in her patch. “They haven’t sold but they are looking to see what their next move could be. Most of them are moving around this inner-city area.”
Buyers were drawn to the four-car garaging, a rarity in the inner city. Photo / Supplied
The kitchen and some of the walls featured waxed steel. Photo / Supplied
The Schofield Street house was designed by Jack McKinney Architects in collaboration with Ireland and Newnham.
Known as Diagrid House, the property features a 56-tonne cantilevered concrete roof, through which light pours into the living spaces. Some of the walls and the kitchen cabinets are made of waxed black steel, and the heated pool is tiled with Italian porcelain.
When the Schofield Street property won the Home of the Year award in 2019, Ireland and McKinney said they had collaborated on 11 alterations, three commercial buildings, and a growing number of new builds in the 12 years they had worked together.
The pair’s renovations tend to fetch top dollar. Last year an immaculately renovated villa on Arthur Street, in Freemans Bay, renovated by McKinney fetched $9m. Another renovation McKinney and Ireland did of a cottage on Norfolk Street, in Ponsonby, fetched $5.3m at the market peak in 2021.
The $5.5m for Schofield Street, while a high point for auctions so far this year, is the third-highest sale price for Grey Lynn. Figures show the top settled sale is the $6.05m paid for an upper-floor apartment on a new block on Great North Road at the beginning of last year.
- Click here to see more houses for sale in Auckland
