A much-loved fire station building in Auckland’s Devonport has hit the market for sale.
And Bayleys agent Annabel Marshall, who is selling the six-bedroom station on 3/4-6 Calliope Road by negotiation, may be setting herself up for a bit of a specialised niche. A year ago, she sold the fully renovated Mount Roskill fire station, which even came with its own vintage fire truck, for $3.35 million.
One of the owners, who asked not to be named, told OneRoof that she and her husband had bought their run-down 1920s fire station on a whim in 1994 after coming across from their Mount Eden home to catch up with friends.
“We were sort of a young couple madly in love and our first year of being together. I don’t want it to sound cliché, but, you know, when you’re walking hand in hand along the street and you look at the real estate and you’re just sort of dreaming about what you’d do,” she said, adding that their initial thoughts of buying a little unit to do up were abandoned when they saw the huge old fire station for sale.
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The owner said that thanks to a real estate agent, who recognised that they weren’t one of the dozens of tyre kickers he’d shown through the place over the years, they were led up through a dusty, dirty crawl space in the upper floor ceiling to the building’s rooftop.
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“We sat on the roof with our estate agent and just looked at the 360 [degree] views and just didn’t know what to say. We were just ‘oh my God, oh my God’, it was amazing,” she said.
At that point, the building had a warren of storage rooms in the basement, the ground floor had bays for the fire trucks plus staff bedrooms and a smoko room. The winning space for the young couple was the big open-plan area on the first floor that housed the pool table, a dark kitchen and more bedrooms, connected to the ground floor by a classic firemen’s pole – their perfect New York loft-style space.
The main open-plan living space on the first floor was originally the firemen’s pool room. Photo / supplied
Windows and doors open up the kitchen to a new terrace. Cupboards were fabricated from original timbers saved from elsewhere in the building and the island is an old railway station counter. Photo / Supplied
A developer had bought the station some years earlier and turned the two adjoining 1950s houses, which had been accommodation for the firemen, into apartments but had never started on the station itself.
Luckily the couple had architect friends they could tap, a German couple whose practice Schulze Poursoltan was experienced in the restoration of old European buildings – the classical look they had in mind – and had eco-credentials too.
The architects reworked the ground floor, replacing garage doors with an elegant grand entrance and an oversized cedar door (like much of the joinery in the house, the owner said, pieces had to be custom-made to suit the scale of the large building). They put in Parisian-style gridded steel windows on the facade, added a proper bathroom, two smart kitchens and an elegant fireplace. The owners even got the marble floor tiles they dreamed of.
On the mostly-open first floor, the architects put in a proper kitchen, built from timber salvaged from the building and opened it up to the loft living and dining room. The living room is a massive 11m by nearly 11m space, with three-metre high ceilings, comfortably zoned for living, study and library. A wall of glass windows and bifold doors to the big terrace brought in much-needed light and views.
The fire station is surrounded by flats built in the 1950s for the firemen, now converted to apartments. Photo / Supplied
Three bedrooms and a bathroom were added on the roof. The wide plank kauri floors and ceiling lining was recycled from elsewhere in the building. Photo / Supplied
But it was adding an entirely new top floor that made the place, the owner said. Officially three bedrooms, the rooms have been used as a sitting room and one is currently an art studio. A terrace on each corner of this level takes in the 360-degree views which captivated the owners when they first sat on the roof.
Over the one year of planning and two years of building, the couple lived on-site with flatmates, moving from floor to floor as different stages were completed.
Many things were recycled and reused – wide old kauri planks found in the ceiling were milled for flooring and a feature ceiling in the top-floor addition, vintage baths and basins were restored. In the main kitchen, the roomy island was a counter from an old railway station, the butchers block stand was found in the station and had been used for drying hoses and cabinets were built from wood saved from the building.
The couple did a lot of the finishing work themselves, with the help of skilled tradies.
“I’ve got stories of my nana, my auntie and my mum chipping the plaster off the bricks, everything was precious,” the owner said.
“We were probably a little naive about how intense it was, living on a building site, I’d just started my first year of teaching, but we were young and had energy.
“We were so excited and everyone was excited for us.”
The original firemen’s pole still runs between the first and ground floors. Photo / Supplied
The ground floor three-bedroom flat, formerly the fire engine garage, had new European-style doors, windows and marble floors installed. Photo / Supplied
The home has served them well – and delighted the local community, being photographed and peered into by many a passer-by. It has been used for film shoots – even this week the owner said she had an American film company doing a location scout.
“They were looking for a space where you could fit at least 20 people in with all the filming gear and all the people. I laughed and I said ‘we’ve managed to fit at least 80, if not 100 people, in this’.
“I had my 21st birthday here, I’ve just had my 50th, we’ve had bouncy castles for the children’s birthdays in the centre of the main floor. You know, it’s been an incredible place.”
The owner said they were ready to pass it on to the next family. There is a new wave of work to do (replacing the windows with new steel, for example) and agent Marshall said the new owners might like to do more with the basement (there is currently just one off-street park).
The ground-floor kitchen. Photo / Supplied
The sitting room has a gas fireplace. Photo / Supplied
“It’s definitely a project, but those city views and water views, it’s such a cool spot,” Marshall said, adding that she is already swamped with requests to view the place (only by appointment, there are no open homes).
The agent could not be drawn on price, as she said there were no comparable properties.
“We’re leaving price out of it, we’re just getting people interested. It’s such a tough one.”
Hard as it is, the owners are ready to downsize.
“This speaks to you, it is just a really special kind of place,” the owner said.
“We’ve put time, energy and money into this place and we’re thinking, what does the next 30 years look like for us? We need someone to come in and appreciate the building for what it is, a unique, beautiful opportunity.
“They can be the next custodians who can finish it off.”
- 3/ 4-6 Calliope Road, Devonport is for sale by price by negotiation
