A good-looking but tired-inside villa owned by two brothers for more than 80 years recently sold at auction for $1.78 million, coming in well under the $2.75m CV.
The home on Kenneth Avenue, in Sandringham, Auckland, had ancient wallpaper and clashing carpets in every room – but underneath those carpets was likely to be gold in the form of kauri floorboards, said Barfoot & Thompson agent Paul Studman.
He met the Barrett brothers (not the All Black family of brothers) around 20 years ago and said he understood the boys moved into the home with their parents and sister when their parents bought the house.
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Their sister married and moved out but the brothers remained bachelors and never left, aside from the war years.
“I don’t think either of them married. They had girlfriends, I’m sure, and one I knew, his girlfriend was an older lady who passed away at 102.”
Studman said the older brother, who died a few years ago aged 98, was a plasterer by trade who had set about lowering the ceilings, probably to keep in the warmth.
The younger brother, now aged around 98, had moved into care but he was the local butcher on Sandringham Road and used to walk everywhere, including to St Luke shops, more recently on his walker.
The older brother was in the artillery in World War II and the younger brother served in Jay Force as part of the post-war occupation of Japan.
The 133sqm house sits on 613sqm of land in one of Auckland's more desirable suburbs. Photo / Supplied
The decor in the villa is old and tired. Photo / Supplied
When they came back, they returned to the house on Kenneth Ave. Studman said they had seen a lot of changes over the years, including at six-hectare Gribblehirst Park which is just over the road.
“He was telling me how people used to go and dump stuff there, there was a bit of a tip.”
The house retained some original features and the plasterer brother had also gibbed about 80% of the walls.
“It’s a good-looking villa,” said Studman. “It’s north-facing, 613 square metres. Good, solid kauri weatherboard.
“In one of the pictures you can see the old meat safe on the side of the house.
“The kitchen was the tiniest thing I’ve ever seen. The brothers used to sit on the back veranda which is closed in and used to sit there and shoot the breeze or read a book or fall asleep in the sun and I used to go and have a cup of tea with them now and again.”
The agent says the property still had kauri floorboards underneath the carpets and lino. Photo / Supplied
A young family bought the home, the only bidders on the day. Studman expected they would renovate and extend the back of the villa, opening it up to the north as the back of the house was very sunny.
“Just bring it back to its golden age, bring it back to its roots with the modernisation at the back, pushing out to the north but not taking away its character.”
Ripping up the carpets, though, would likely be a priority: “That was the consensus from most people looking at it – what are those carpets hiding? Some really good floorboards? I think that is definitely the case.”
The villa is not the worst house Studman has sold, by far. He recalled a villa built in 1890 in a sad state of repair on Brown Street, Ponsonby, in which a woman and eight of her dogs died in a fire which ripped through it in 2015.
“She was quite an entity in Ponsonby and I sold that one. You had the facade but out the back it was just cindered, burnt.
“We had to put up police tape, you know, do not cross, and create a walkway because it was an OSH nightmare.”
The sale price in 2016 was $1.55m and OneRoof records show a home was built on the site in 2021. The property now has a CV of $4.45m.
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