If walls could talk, David and Julie Williams’ home would have an abundance of stories to tell. Built in 1885 right on the water’s edge in Orua Bay, on the Awhitu Peninsula, it has a fascinating history and is a truly unique place to live, says David.
The house was named Jesmond Dene after a park in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, where the original owners hailed from. It was retitled Loch Lomond House in 1934 by new owners who found that the view across the Manukau Harbour reminded them of Scotland.
For the next 17 years the gracious homestead was run as a guest house, becoming hugely popular with visitors from Auckland. It also contained a shop and a post office.
But in the 1950s, as more people began owning cars and the passenger ferry services to Orua Bay stopped, the guest house went into decline.
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Julie and David bought the property as their family home back in 1973 and renamed it Jesmond Dene.
David grew up in the area, and although he had a meat business in Auckland, was keen to live on the peninsula. “It’s a great place to live, very peaceful and there’s a really good community,” he says.
He’s now retired but for many years he commuted to work via his small runabout boat. “It used to take me 15 minutes on a good day to get to Titirangi,” he recalls. “I kept a car there and had a mooring for my boat. I would drive to work from there - it was much easier than driving all the way round from here.”
Julie would be able to see him returning home across the harbour and have time to get dinner on the table.
Over its 134-year history, Jesmond Dene has hosted many wonderful events, including weddings, birthday celebrations and garden parties. Prime Minister David Lange stayed there with his family, Olympian Murray Halberg has been a guest and Edmund Hillary also visited, in his beekeeper days, before becoming a world-renowned mountaineer. In the nearly half century David and Julie have lived there, they’ve had many visitors dropping by to reminisce about their holidays at the guest house. The most recent was a 95-year-old who spent his honeymoon there.
For the Williamses, it has been a wonderful place to bring up their three boys and to now host their six grand-daughters. It’s easy to launch a boat and head out to explore the Manakau Heads but you don’t even need to leave home to go fishing, points out David.
“At high tide you can sit on the front lawn and fish from there,” he says. “You’re guaranteed to get snapper.”
He and Julie have kept the character-filled home well-maintained during their tenure. In the main living room a wall of windows frames the view across the harbour to Auckland - the Sky Tower is visible in the distance. The same outlook is also visible from the smart white kitchen, which has doors out to the wrap-around veranda. A second living room is elegant and cosy in winter, thanks to the woodburning fire. There’s yet another living space and a study on the ground floor, along with a bedroom, bathroom, laundry and covered patio. Upstairs are four bedrooms and a family bathroom, and there’s also a basement rumpus room, created out of what was once four bunkrooms.
David and Julie are selling as age is starting to catch up with them, and they don’t need such a big home. They are also selling a 9 acre clifftop section behind the house that includes a huge shed with a mezzanine floor. David has kept his boats here, but it wouldn’t take much to turn it into accommodation.
Agent Stanley Armon from Barfoot & Thompson points out that although many of the other homes in this part of the bay can only be accessed from the beach at low tide, Jesmond Dene has two other ways of driving onto the property.
“It’s a lovely, peaceful home in a special spot with a great history and a really nice vibe, and it’s not often that you find somewhere where you can catch snapper while sitting in a beach chair on your front lawn!”
