- Kiwi-Tongan actress Luciane Buchanan makes cryptic post alongside photo of sold sign
- The house in question sold for $2.72 million at auction this week.
- The home, bought for $21,000 in the 1970s by Ekuoti and Tiueti Folau, housed four generations.
It looks as if one of New Zealand's biggest acting stars, Luciane Buchanan, has saved her family's home in Auckland's Herne Bay.
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Buchanan, who has found global fame on hit Netflix show The Night Agent and is set to appear alongside Jason Momoa in the upcoming Apple TV series Chief of War, made a cryptic post on her social feed yesterday.
Underneath a photo of a sold sign outside a Herne Bay villa, Buchanan wrote: "My family has done 50 years in this home in Herne Bay. Here's to many more."
The photo is one of seven set to Beyonce's II Hands II Heaven. It also includes a vintage photo of three little girls outside the same home.
The three-bedroom villa in Auckland's Herne Bay was bought by the vendors' parents for $21,000. Photo / Supplied
The property still features touches from the 1970s. Photo / Supplied
The modest three-bedroom house in question had sold for $2.72m on Thursday at an intense auction held by Harcourts Cooper & Co. Listing agent Carmen Holder told OneRoof that six bidders had competed at the auction, which saw 68 bids placed over almost 20 minutes.
Bidding had kicked off at $2.125m and rose in tiny increments as the bidders tried to keep ahead of the competition.
When OneRoof talked to Holder immediately after the sale, she declined to say who bought the property, but did say the sale was a great result for her vendors.
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OneRoof profiled the Herne Bay home before the auction and talked to one of the vendors, Tangi Folau.
Folau said her parents, Ekuoti and Tiueti, bought the property for $21,000 in the 1970s.
Tangi said her father came to New Zealand from Tonga because her sister had a hole in her heart and needed urgent treatment. “A charitable organisation funded their trip to New Zealand,” she said. “She underwent operations that saved her life, but the doctor said she could not live in Tonga because of the climate.”
Once Ekuoti landed a job in Auckland as a carpenter, the rest of the family followed. “We were living in Ponsonby, and then my dad saw [the villa] and bought it with the help of my auntie for $21,000, I think,” she said.
Buchanan as Rose Larkin and Gabriel Basso as Peter Sutherland in The Night Agent. Photo / Netflix
“It was split into two flats and there was a single toilet outside.” Ekuoti enclosed the front veranda and built additional dwellings out the back surrounding the toilet. Those extra rooms housed Tangi’s uncles, their cousins, and other extended family members.
Since the Folau family bought the home in 1976, four generations have lived there. Tangi is the only member of the family who has lived there continuously.
Tangi said she always promised her mother that she wouldn’t sell the home while her parents were still alive (Ekuoti died in 2000 and Tiueti in 2022). The proceeds from the sale were to be divided among the couple’s seven children.
Buchanan, who studied acting at the Auckland Performing Arts Centre, is proud of her Tongan heritage. She's appeared in several hit shows since she launched her career in 2012.
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