- A Napier heritage building, formerly a brothel, sold for $475,000 to a local woman.
- The new owner, passionate about preserving old properties, plans to renovate it later this year.
- Her daughter was initially shocked by the building’s history, but she emphasised it’s just "bricks and mortar".
Napier’s history-making brothel has been snapped up by a local woman for $475,000 after she fell in love with the building’s architecture and colourful history.
Start your property search
She decided to buy the Spanish Mission-style house on Shelley Street – formerly the Monterell Massage Parlour – and add it to her growing collection of heritage buildings in the city.
The buyer, who OneRoof agreed not to name, said she was just doing her bit to protect the city’s history.
The new owner has plans to brighten up some of the walls and put in patterned tiles in keeping with its Spanish-mission style. Photo / Supplied
“I just have a love of old properties, and I think it’s important to maintain them,” she told OneRoof.
Her daughter was slightly horrified when she discovered her latest purchase had been a brothel.
“I said it’s just bricks and mortar. A lot of buildings have a history. It’s not like someone was murdered in here and it was haunted,” she said.
She was adamant that the building’s past life would stay in the past. “We will not be continuing what they did before. We are not getting into that business,” she told OneRoof.
Discover more:
- Six times the size of an average house but it will cost you $20m-plus
- Three apartments in Art Deco icon for sale for first time in almost 20 years
- Buyer identified for Philip Polkinghorne’s multi-million-dollar Remuera mansion
The buyer plans to rent out the three-bedroom home until she can carry out re-piling work later this year.
Planned renovation work also include adding patterned tiles to the kitchen and installing a wrought iron fence and a new front door that would be in keeping with the property’s Spanish Mission style.
“I’d love to have one of those peek holes covered by an iron grill.”
The vendor told OneRoof last year that he had bought the house off an investor in 2015 for $230,000. He rented it out to long-term tenants until deciding to do it up and put it on Airbnb about two years ago.
The three-bedroom property was a popular stay on Airbnb. Photo / Supplied
The property’s central location had made it popular with visitors to the city. “It was a very, very good decision. It was a great income.”
He told OneRoof this week he was pleased with the outcome of the sale even though the $475,000 was well below his asking price of $575,000.
Property Brokers agent Chris McIntyre told OneRoof that the property had quite a reputation. She had heard stories of men frequenting the brothel to use the bar as it was the only place in Napier serving alcohol at three in the morning.
A news report from Hawke’s Bay Today in 2003 mentioned that Monterell was Hawke’s Bay’s first massage parlour. The article reported that it had changed hands in 2002 and was now owned by the director of a transport firm, and that a former sex worker was in charge of day-to-day business.
It said that unlike the clubs, Monterell’s was open during the day and the only drinks on offer were tea and coffee. “A lot of men get lonely, they need cuddles and someone to talk to,” the shop manager told the paper.
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Napier
