A Bay of Plenty lifestyle property with an epic 36m, glow-in-the-dark waterslide in the backyard has sold under the hammer for $1.72 million.
The Omanawa property, which has an RV of $1.63m and had arguably one of the most fun backyards in the country, attracted a lot of attention, with lots of people filing into the Tremains auction room and tuning in online to watch it sell.
The auction opened at a cheeky $1m, before a vendor bid of $1.2m was made.
Tremains auctioneer Will Johnston told the crowd that $1.4m wouldn’t win them the house, but it would give them the right to start a conversation to get into “hydroslide ownership”.
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The auction paused at $1.4m and after more than 30 minutes it resumed and the property was announced on the market and sold for $1.72m.
Johnston said the property was “absolutely beautiful”, adding that he could understand why there had been “heaps” of interest in it.
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“We’ve got plenty of people in the room and watching online,” he said.
Owners Darryl and Taryn Angus earlier told OneRoof that they came up with the novel idea of turning their 6565sqm backyard into an adventure playground during a Covid lockdown.
The idea of buying a second-hand waterslide on Trade Me escalated and Darryl ended up importing a 36m waterslide that glows in the dark from overseas.
An existing concrete basketball court was bowled at the same time and replaced with a sprung absorbent floor, high fence and flood lights which light up both the pool and court at night.
The commercial quality waterslide comes out into a heated swimming pool. Photo / Supplied
The all-weather basketball court was built at the same time. Photo / Supplied
“It’s just one of those silly things you do in life to entertain yourself and keep yourself busy and be a bit creative. And then you get into it and go, ‘why am I doing this’,” Darryl told OneRoof.
The slide had cost at least $100,000, the indoor heated swimming pool about $100,000 and the basketball court about $50,000.
“It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime thing to dream that up and do it and complete it and have it all functioning. It’s a pretty cool thing to have done.”
The article on the property was OneRoof's most popular story this month.
Darryl said the family of five had plenty of fun in the backyard, but with their children getting older they decided to sell the four-bedroom, three-bathroom home and move to the city so their kids could be closer to friends.
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom home was built by Golden Homes in 2017. Photo / Supplied
Tremains listing agent Clark Mazey told OneRoof at the time of launching the property that it was such a unique property and he had never seen anything like it.
While he had sold houses with tennis courts and swimming pools, he had never sold one with a waterslide, basketball court or even such an “outstanding shed”.
The waterslide had been done extremely well, he said.
“I was like this is actually some serious kit. It actually blew my mind. I was like this is actually like a commercial [water park] – it was like you were at Wet’n’Wild or Waiwera – it has been done to such a high standard.”
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