An expat Kiwi living in Japan has bought a unique property with expansive and perfectly manicured gardens just down the road from where he grew up.
The Chapman-inspired Arts and Crafts-style home with an impressive English country-style grounds had been patiently waiting for a buyer with an emotional connection and after six months on the market has finally found one.
Listing agent Vaughan Wilson, from New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty, said the property on Nicholls Road, in Flemington, sold earlier this month for around its asking price of $1.625 million to an expat looking for a New Zealand base.
“It’s going to be land-banked and used as a home when they are in New Zealand.”
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Wilson said the new owner, who had bought the property with his partner, had grown up in Flemington, in Central Hawke’s Bay, and had a lot of memories of the house. The 1950s property had been surrounded by farmland before being transformed into an English country garden by its green-fingered owners over 20 years ago.
“It was definitely a property that required an emotional person to be drawn to what the property was offering. A lot of people would admire it but weren’t prepared to be the next custodian. It’s an awesome property, but people kind of go ‘wow the gardens’.”
The style of the 1950s home, which had been sympathetically renovated in keeping with the era, and the location had been the main drawcards for the new owner, he said.
“He loved the gardens obviously as well, but I think a lot of it is coming back home. Sometimes people wait for the property to make that move and have that base back home and this was the one for them.”
The home had been sympathetically renovated. Photo / Supplied
The new owner plans to hire a gardener to maintain and further develop the manicured gardens that once featured in a glossy magazine. Photo / Supplied
Instead of following in the footsteps of the current owners and doing all the work themselves, the new owners plan to hire gardeners to maintain and develop the next stage of the garden.
The property had been the passion project for gardeners Angela and Bruce Ayling who spent 15 years commuting to the property from Napier at the weekends to transform the farmland into a garden so magical it was featured in House and Garden in 2018. They eventually retired to the area about five years ago.
Angela Ayling told OneRoof at the time the property was listed in October last year that it was an “obsessive passion” of theirs to create and build gardens and the Nicholls Road property provided the perfect canvas for them to develop the formal garden at the front of the house.
Ayling drew her inspiration from books by English garden writers and other impressive gardens around New Zealand.
They created a formal garden with meticulously trimmed hedging to create straight lines towards the home, ponds, a parterre knot garden and two rows of pyramid trees. There were also informal plantings that could be seen on different walks around the garden.
Wilson said the Aylings were “super happy” with the result but had mixed emotions about parting with their pride and joy after 20 years.
“Happy to be handing it over to somebody else, also very emotional because it has been a project of a lot of passion, and it has been a transformation over about 20 years of ownership so there has been a lot of emotions. So probably a little bit mixed, but ready for the next chapter as well.”
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