A former nunnery that underwent a Cinderella-like transformation during Covid has sold for $12 million, OneRoof can reveal.
The off-market deal brokered by Bayleys agents Cameron Melhuish and Damien Bullick saw boutique hotel and restaurant The Convent, in Auckland's Grey Lynn, snapped up late last year by an investment company called Ranchhod Group.
The property at 454 Great North Road had a CV of $8.7m and had been upgraded and redeveloped by developer Andy Davies, the brainchild behind the popular high-end food market Ponsonby Central, which is also on the market for sale.
Davies had bought the historic St Joseph’s Convent in mid-2018 for $4.1m. The property had fallen into disrepair after being turned into a boarding house.
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When The New Zealand Herald visited it in 2017, the 20-room house was slammed as a slum by the Auckland City Mission, local politicians and neighbours, was stacked with rubbish and visited by rats.
Over two years, Davies and his team transformed it into one of Auckland’s chichi spots, finally opening in late 2020.
The new owner, Mahesh Ranchhod, who leads the family company with Tejal Ranchhod, told OneRoof that The Convent was the company's first hotel that they were running themselves.
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The Group also owns The Cedarwood Motel, in Rotorua, which is run by an independent operator. Until now, the company has specialised in retail and office space, including the Canterbury Arcade in Auckland’s Queen Street, and properties in Wellington and Brisbane.
“We fell in love with it. It’s hard not to, it’s a beautiful place,” Ranchhod said, adding that they benefited from the timing of the settlement, in November 2022, as New Zealand’s borders had opened up and travellers were back for the summer.
“We have a lot of people from Europe, as well as Ponsonby and Grey Lynn locals. There is quite a bit of demand for a boutique hotel – it’s niche, and we’ve found it a positive acquisition.”
Ranchhod, who was in New York looking at boutique hotels when OneRoof spoke to him, said that retail and office property was struggling so diversifying into hospitality made sense.
Well-known Auckland property developer Andy Davies transformed the run-down boarding house into a stylish hotel and restaurant. Photo / Babiche Martens
The boarding house on Great North Road was called a slum by locals and politicians before it sold in 2018. Photo / Michael Craig
The company has also acquired another heritage hotel property in the central city to which they plan to give a Convent-style upgrade but cannot reveal details until later in the year.
“We’ve got to give Andy the credit. He’s got a good eye and did a beautiful job. And The Convent and Ada restaurant fit like a glove, they go beautifully together.”
Ranchhod has brought in well-known restaurateurs Francesca Mazza and Aaron Carson (a partial list of their popular places includes Sugar at Chelsea Bay, Just Like Martha, Major Tom and Winona Forever) to run Ada, but the company’s big move is to expand the hotel into the neighbouring empty section to meet demand.
“Plans are already drawn up and we’re still in the feasibility and resource consent stage,” he said.
“We’re thinking two to three stories, with the same décor and exterior, they will feed off each other. We always love the historic buildings. They are built so solidly, they are elegant and beautiful. Run-of-the-mill places are hard to compete against that. This is what we’re aiming for.”
Restoring the former convent required two years of work, and incurred cost overruns not helped by Covid lockdowns. Photo / Babiche Martens
Inside Ada restaurant, now under new management. Photo / Alex Burton
Davies told OneRoof that the renovation and transformation of the boarding house had been a passion project, revealing that he had his eye on the property for some time.
“My first offer was 20 years ago, I had success after I think four or five offers, and it finally came back on the market," he said.
“There were other tenders, but we were unconditional. The broker said ‘in your wildest dreams if you got it for that price’, and we did, we got it."
While engineers and planners sorted out the structural strengthening of the 1920s building, Davies and niece Claire O’Shannessy, operations and development manager at Davies Properties, were the creative heart.
Hospitality was not new to Davies and O’Shannessy, as the company had already brought their design sensibilities to renovating a Victorian building on Karangahape Road into the upmarket backpackers Haka Lodge and built the four-star Haka Hotel behind, with another in Newmarket.
Earlier, Davies had transformed a former Mount Eden substation into the upscale Mantells venue, founded the Unistay student accommodation chain and had developed a boutique hotel in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
“We did Villa Enrique about 12 years ago. We closed over Covid and then developers were bugging me to sell, and I couldn’t get to Mexico, so we sold. Claire and I did five hotels in four years,” Davies said.
Andy Davies transformed a former factory warehouse into Ponsonby Central 12 years ago. It is now on the market for sale. Photo / Michael Craig
One of the boutique suites, a mixture of vintage and high-style finds. Photo / Babiche Martens
The pair spotted a gap in Auckland for a luxury boutique place like those they’d experienced around the world. For its décor, the 23-suite hotel, with a bar area and Ada restaurant spilling out to a courtyard leaned into collections of Catholic memorabilia (“We saw a lot of crosses in Mexico," Davies quipped) and the innovative styling that had made Ponsonby Central such a success.
While the renovation of the old convent was plagued by the now-familiar Covid shortages of builders and building materials and lockdowns, Davies said it took off as soon as it opened.
“We didn’t spend a dollar on marketing, but as soon as we opened [in late 2020] it was 80% occupancy.”
For the restaurant, Ada, Davies also set up Cotto to feature chef Hayden Phiskie’s Italian style – and had no intention of selling.
“It wasn’t on the market, but one day I get a call from [Bayleys agent] Cameron saying ‘I’m there in 15 minutes, I want you to sign this offer. You’re not buying, you’re selling.’
“Within a week it was done. Once I’m gone, I’m gone.”
Despite the superb profit on paper – from just over $4m to $12m in four years – Davies knows the work and money it took to turn the property around (he told the Herald last year the “money pit” ran three times over budget) and was not purposely looking for another hotel project.
Meantime, he and his agents are working through the multiple tenders in order to close the sale of Ponsonby Central. The 12-year-old retail and restaurant hub was put on the market at the end of last year after the addition of an extensive carpark, apartment and movie theatre addition.
Davies told OneRoof he was currently working on a new-build in a city fringe location he can’t yet reveal.
“I’m sort of stepping back a bit. But we’ve just got the first drafts of the plans back from the architects at Paul Brown. It’s going to be super cool," he said.
“The Convent was amazing. We have people approach us all the time. It’s so much work, but as soon as someone sees it, they want to buy it. We don’t build to sell. It’s got to work as a long-term investment.”
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