In what could be a local record, three stars of Grand Designs NZ are on the market at the same time.
The three homes – a replica villa in Helensville, a luxury apartment in the former Farmers tearooms and a beach house at Piha – have a combined CV of more than $10 million.
The agents involved have high expectations for their listings, but one, Kelly Davison, of Burmester Realty, has a personal connection to the house she is selling. She built it.
Davison shot to fame in 2017 when she decided to list her Grand Designs villa just days after the episode that detailed her property journey on TV.
Start your property search
Davison, her husband Joe, and their sometimes-reluctant six kids built the five-bedroom house at 319E Wishart Road, in Helensville, based on a Victorian villa that Davison had loved as a child.
Her episode of Grand Designs memorably ended with her saying she was disappointed with the results.
The family sold the house in 2018 after a year of living there, and Davison spent her spare time post-Grand Designs studying for her real estate licence.
Discover more:
- Bidders go crazy for controversial Block NZ home
- Bought for $750,000, sold for $490,000 - Auckland home takes massive hit at mortgagee sale
- No address, no photos, no price - agent selling ‘mystery’ South Auckland house
She was relieved to see how lovely the owners, Stephen and Tracy Kendall-Jones, had made her old home. “I’m proud they have chosen me to sell this,” she told OneRoof. “It’s been six years since I’d been in the house. It did bring back a lot of memories, and it was quite exciting to see what different things they’d done. They’d put their stamp on it.”
The interior of the villa is largely the same as it was on the show, the owners of six years had made changes on the outside, adding solar panels and extra heating, another water tank, concreting the driveway, adding a garage and doing more landscaping, adding a chicken run and vegetable gardens to the orchards that were already there.
“They’re absolutely in love with it, I’d say it will be heartfelt when they leave. But they’re empty-nesters, they’ve got two people rattling around in a big family home,” Davison told OneRoof.
Inside the Wishart Road property. The grand dining room is a favourite. Photo / Supplied
The penthouse apartment in the Heritage Hotel at 635/65 Hobson Street, which featured in season six of Grand Designs, is back on the market after a year's pause. Photo / Supplied
Owner Stephen Kendall-Jones told OneRoof that the reality of selling was only starting to hit. “It’s heart-wrenching when you see it come up on the website. But it’s time for somebody else to enjoy,” he said.
He still remembers his first glimpse of the property when he and Tracy were beginning their search for a country place. “From the top of the driveway as soon as we saw it, it was like ‘wow’.”
Davison said that the first open homes this weekend will give everyone a sense of the likely price of the villa.
New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agents Patrick McAteer and Chrissie Dimock are bringing one of the stars of season six of Grand Design to auction on October 2.
The 540sqm steel and brick New York-style loft apartment at 635/35 Hobson Street first hit the market in June 2022 but buyer interest wasn’t at the level owners Bridget and Steve Varney expected, so they withdrew it from sale six months later. Now they are trying again.
McAteer told OneRoof: “The market softened around high-end properties so the best thing to do was to rest it and wait for some level of market recovery, both nationally and internationally.”
He said early indications of buyer interest were strong since the listing was relaunched earlier this week. “It’s been on the market only two days and we’ve had two enquiries out of Singapore and London,” he told OneRoof on Thursday.
“We put Grand Designs in the marketing, because it’s a good brand to a lot of people. It’s well crafted, it’s international. People know it has stood up to Grand Designs scrutiny.”
The architect-designed five-bedroom house at 81 Piha Road, Piha, also featured on Grand Designs NZ season six. Photo / Supplied
McAteer admitted that some people might find it brave to go to auction for a property in this price level, but he said it was the best way to get a good price.
“Auction is a process, you have conditional buyers off in the background. But what you’re looking for is someone who can show up and buy at that level.”
The Varneys bought the heritage-protected floor in mid-2017 for a reported $2.5m and spent another $3.5m on the build.
Another costly build is 81 Piha Road, which also featured in season six of Grand Designs. NZ Sotheby’s agent Angela Smith has had the striking steel, cedar, and glass house at 81 Piha Road for sale by negotiation since June.
The four-bedroom 267sqm house on a huge 3010sqm section has an RV of $2.5m, but with its striking designer details including German lighting, a designer kitchen with a butlers pantry, an office, an outside pool, Argentinian barbecue, a woodfire pizza dome and beer on tap, the property certainly cost the owners a lot more than that for land and then to build.
On the show, owners Joseph and Susannah admitted the build had ballooned from an initial $1.3m estimate to over $2m (and counting), as they added in earthworks and landscaping.
The property was first listed in August 2022, initially with an auction campaign, but was withdrawn in December. A brief campaign in February 2023 was also withdrawn before Smith took on the listing.
- 319E Wishart Road, in Helensville, Auckland, is for sale by negotiation; 635/35 Hobson Street, in Auckland Central, goes to auction on October 2; 81 Piha Road, in Piha, is for sale by negotiation
