Nipping out to these 'dairies'? You'll want $2m-plus in your back pocket

While it may be leafy, Remuera is not the first part of Auckland that you’d think of as bucolic farmland.

But remarkably, not one but two properties are currently on the market that hark back to the suburb’s past as food supplier for the growing city. Both houses were working creameries, one from the 1860s, the other from the 1950s.

The first, is a heritage-zoned property on Ridings Road with a CV of $2.77 million that once served the rolling farmland and grand houses on the eastern side of Auckland. In the 1880s there were only three buildings on the northern slopes, the land left when the bush cover was cleared had both good volcanic soil and sea views from its northern slopes.

Ray White Remuera agent Steve Koerber, who is marketing The Creamery, says: “One hundred and sixty years ago the northerly vista from Mount Hobson to the Waitemata Harbour was of sloping green pastures with farmhouses dotted here and there. Today, one of those original dots [is] at 29 Ridings Road.”

>>> Find out more about 29 Ridings Road

The creamery is preserved below the main cottage. While it’s now just a hand storage spot, it has the stone floors and brick walls that would have kept the milk, cheese and butter cool and sweet. There are still the original kauri shelves, used to stack cheeses, and kauri benches that could be scrubbed clean by the dairy maid. Today the house opens straight to the street, but photos left by previous owners show the early farm tracks, paddocks and trees.

Luckily, the charming facade - a second gable was added to the first a decade or so after the house was built in 1860 - has a heritage overlay, but Koerber expects new buyers may want to expand and create additional floor area for a family. The owner, an architect, added a double garage and studio below the house, replicating the gingerbread trim of the original house.

Further east, in the tiny-but-pricey Loreto Heights off Benson Road, is the second creamery. The stucco and double brick house once belonged to the dairyman who ran the herd for the nuns who lived at Loreto Hall, the Catholic teachers college. The original house was built by the Elliot family, becoming the convent and college in 1950, says Vicky Wallace who is marketing the property.

>>> Find out more about 4 Loreto Heights

When the old house was demolished in the 1990s, Loreto Heights became an exclusive enclave, where most of the properties have CVs of $3.3 million to over $4 million. The Creamery, at 198 square metres is more modest than most of its neighbours, and with a sunny flat garden, has a CV of $2.475 million and is being marketed as an ideal apartment alternative for down-sizers.