- Peter Macky sold his Herne Bay home for over $3.4m to a local couple.
- Macky, known for his arts and heritage work, has moved to a central Auckland apartment.
- He restored a historic train station in Germany, highlighting his commitment to preserving old buildings.
Kiwi entrepreneur and arts champion Peter Macky has found a new owner for his Herne Bay home of 45 years.
Start your property search
Ray White listing agent Scott Wither told OneRoof the three-bedroom house on Hamilton Road, in Auckland’s wealthiest suburb of Herne Bay, had attracted strong interest and sold to a local couple for more than its RV of $3.4 million.
“It’s not every day you see a property like this in Herne Bay. They liked the sea view, they liked the privacy,” he said, noting there were five offers made on the property.
“Everybody who looked at the property was local, and all of them wanted to be on Herne Bay’s northern slopes.”
The house was stylishly presented and attracted strong interest from local buyers. Photo / Supplied
Macky told OneRoof he had downsized to an apartment in central Auckland and was spending more of his time in Germany, where he just won a prestigious award for his restoration of a train station.
“I’m very happy for somebody to get some enjoyment from Hamilton Road,” he said.
Macky is a modern “renaissance” man. He made a name for himself as a lawyer, but is equally renowned for his full-throated support of Auckland’s arts and sporting scene. He’s chaired the Warriors, been a patron of Auckland Writers’ Festival, and thrown himself into the preservation work of historic buildings – both in New Zealand and abroad.
Discover more:
- $1 reserve mansion sells for $3.5m after heartwarming twist
- Jason Statham's Kiwi crib snapped up in $56m mansion swap
- How much money has your house made in the last three months?
His Hamilton Road house had been home to one of the country’s finest private art collections, including two works by Otis Frizzell. “We’re not big art collectors. We don’t have a warehouse like Dame Jenny Gibbs, who is a friend of mine. No [Colin] McCahons or Gretchen Albrecht,” Macky said.
The Hamilton Road house is a duplex. Macky told OneRoof in March, when the property hit the market, that he teamed up with a friend in 1980 to buy what was probably the last piece of vacant land in Herne Bay. They split the section in two and commissioned the build of duplexes – one for each of them.
“We did it together. We found the piece of land, which was a large piece of land, and we built at the rear of it. The house was designed by my brother-in-law, who’s a Queensland architect,” Macky said.
Macky said he was driven to save old buildings after the destruction of Coolangatta, a Remuera home built by his maternal great-grandmother, which was ripped down in a matter of hours in 2006. Macky vented his anger at that destruction in the book Coolangatta: A Homage, which he co-wrote with Paul Waite in 2010.
Peter Macky: “I split my time between Berlin and Auckland. I love both cities passionately." Photo / Babiche Martens
The German station Macky spent nearly 10 years restoring. Photo / Supplied
He made headlines in New Zealand and in Germany when he took on the restoration of the Kaiserbahnhof (royal train station) in the village of Halbe, south-east of Berlin.
Macky had been living in Berlin for about six months when on a regular cycling outing he came across the decaying train station, which had been built in 1865 for Kaiser Wilhelm I’s hunting trips. The Kaiser and his son Wilhelm II stopped there for refreshments when on their private train.
After the last Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate in 1918, the line was used less. It became more important during Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia, said Macky.
When Germany was divided between east and west in 1945, the Kaiserbahnhof was in the east, where the communist rulers weren’t that keen on private railways for royalty and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the building was left to decay.
Macky snapped up the building and started a 10-year restoration project, which he described as challenging and expensive. “I can’t afford to [restore] every building, [but] this was a hugely important building. It was a challenge, and that’s why I did it.”
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Auckland
