A stunning five-bedroom home in Mangawhai that featured on the TV series Grand Designs NZ sold under the hammer yesterday for $4 million.
Three determined bidders duked it out in front of a crowd of about 150 people at an auction held on site at 68 Molesworth Drive in Mangawhai.
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ReMax agent Nola Kloppers, who marketed the house with Ben Kloppers and Charlotte Wilson, told OneRoof the bidding action was strong and blew the other registered bidders "out of the water". "In Mangawhai and Mangawhai Heads, the highest prices are usually $2.5 million to $2.95 million," she said.
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There were tears from owners Patty and Geoff Coley, Kloppers said, when the hammer went down on the property, which is known to fans of Grand Designs as the Jetty House.
"There was a lot of emotion involved. We did have a lot of locals looking. It was amazing and a pretty unique property. We're looking forward to seeing their next project."
Kloppers says that some 116 groups had viewed the property through the open homes. The winning bidders were an Auckland family who planned to use the house as their holiday home.
Included in the sale are the historic photos of Wellington wharf, the source of Jetty House's huge recycled beams, gifted to the Coleys by Grand Designs NZ.
Patty and Geoff Coley created a buzz in Mangawhai, and around the rest of New Zealand, when their efforts to build a house with recycled materials featured on the hit show.
Patty Coley told OneRoof last month: “I’m very proud of this house. I think it’s pretty special."
She said the couple had decided to sell because they were wanting to tackle another project. “It’s my fault, I want to do another project,” she said. “It won’t be as grand as this one though.”
Known as the Jetty House, the home, which has a 2017 CV of $1.93 million, sits on an acre of land alongside the Mangawhai estuary and has its own jetty.
Patty and Geoff Coley created a house with recycled materials. Photo / Supplied
It’s made up of four linked pavilions that look like boatsheds and are wrapped around a central courtyard. It was a deliberate decision to paint the exterior black, including the window frames.
Fairly unassuming from the outside, the true magic of the home reveals itself when you walk in the front door. The style is coastal-meets-rustic-meets-industrial, and the home is the ultimate example of how to recycle a range of materials and give them a new lease of life.
The house fits in with landscape and offers stunning views. Photo / Supplied
Lovingly reused materials include 100-year-old bricks from Auckland’s Real Groovy store and the Albion Hotel in Gisborne, and reclaimed rimu from the original Whitcoulls store in Wellington.
The vanity in the master bathroom en suite was repurposed from a piece of steel furniture that came from a French factory, tapware throughout the house is made from recycled brass and copper and antique teak cupboards in the walk-in wardrobe and guest bedroom were brought over from Bali.
A shell chandelier from Hawaii hangs over a freestanding bathtub that sits on a timber platform in the master bedroom. Huge windows provide a fabulous outlook while you’re soaking in the tub.
The pieces de resistance are the huge wooden ceiling trusses in the main living area, made from ironbark hardwood that once supported the Ferry Wharf in Wellington and date back to 1890. The steel plates holding them together came from the inside of cyanide tanks in Waihi goldmines.
Patty Coley said she teamed up with Bay of Plenty demolition materials expert Mike Uttinger, who helped her to source many of the recycled items that have become the standout features of the home. Meanwhile treasures that she’d collected and stored for many years were finally able to be used.
Her goal was to create a home that was not only unique and beautifully crafted, but comfortable and relaxing.
“I really wanted it to feel homely; I didn’t want people to feel that they had to take their shoes off,” she said.
Several Grand Designs NZ homes have been put on the market since featuring on the show. One, a five bedroom house in Auckland's Helensville, was listed the day after its episode was aired.
- Additional reporting by Donna Fleming
