A modern Georgian-style house on Auckland’s North Shore, known locally as The White House, sold last week for $3.66 million.
The new owners of the house on Greenhithe Road, Greenhithe, move into their new mansion in January next year, a couple of weeks after new occupants take over the more famous White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC.
The five-bedroom house, which was marketed by Harcourts agents Aman Gulia and Rachel Simpson in October, had four bidders at its October 20 auction but passed in. It sold 10 days later for $3.66m after intense negotiations between the two top bidders. That is well above the property’s $2.6m CV set in 2021 as the house was undergoing a substantial renovation.
The vendors, Peter and Kathleen Hill, had bought the sprawling house at a mortgagee sale for $2.05m the day before New Zealand went into lockdown in March 2020. They told OneRoof earlier in October that when they bought, the place had been abandoned for over a year and was in a poor state, they still had their other house in Greenhithe, three kids, and a business that was shut down – and tattered nerves.
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Their risk and years of hard renovation work paid off when over 500,000 people admired the property on the agents’ Facebook pages and 67 groups of buyers viewed the property that they had dubbed “a true unicorn property in Greenhithe”.
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The agents played the White House connection hard, saying the “Georgian style residence blends presidential luxury with modern family living” and likening the pool area to the “serene South Lawn”.
The buyers, a family moving from the North Shore to Greenhithe to be closer to Kristin School for their two children, aged 11 and 14, had been looking for only about six weeks, one of them told OneRoof. Their auction bid didn’t reach reserve, so they went into a multi-offer with the top bidder, securing the house 10 days later.
“We’d been to open homes for two weeks, visiting six or more houses in one day,” one of the new owners told OneRoof.
When the 444sqm home was bought by the current owners, there had been no power for a year and the property had been neglected. Photo / Supplied
Harcourts agent Aman Gulia said 500,000 people saw the place on Facebook, with 67of them viewing it in real life. Photo / Supplied
“We wanted a place we could stay a long time and this location, the quality of the house and the size of the property [1229sqm] was very good. I understand it’s not easy for the vendor because there are so many properties on the market, every buyer wants a cheaper deal and it’s not easy to close the deal.”
The buyer praised the quality of the Hills’ renovation.
“We rolled up our sleeves and started the massive clean-up and we have gone over every inch of the property and rescued, restored or upgraded it. It has been an amazing project. The bones of the house were excellent – no expense was spared when it was built,” Kathleen Hill earlier told OneRoof.
“We needed four guys with machetes to hack away the growth,” she said of the overgrown gardens.
Solid American oak flooring spans the formal and informal living areas and chef’s kitchen downstairs. Photo / Supplied
A grand staircase leads to the five oversized bedrooms and three bathrooms upstairs. Photo / Supplied
“The lady who had initially done it did a beautiful job with her planting, so by taking all of the growth away we unearthed a really beautiful space.”
They enhanced it further with new decking, a heated pool, sprawling terraces, and an outdoor fireplace, making it a completely private, low-maintenance oasis.
Hill said they were delighted the house had sold to a family, but they’re now excited about their next project – a lifestyle block near Coatesville that will accommodate their son Cameron’s karting sport.
“He’s just back from Italy representing New Zealand in the Toyota GR86. We’ll have a lot more driveway for the car transporter and garaging for his cars. The house will get the Kathleen treatment,” she told OneRoof.
“I love having projects. We don’t do flicks, but we do a house until it is absolutely perfect and say ‘we’ll stay here forever’. But after four or five years, we decide we need another project.”
Simpson said buyers had been telling the agents it was the best outdoor entertainment area they’d ever seen.
“I’m grateful to my vendors for trusting me to do things my way. I promised eyes on the listing, and that’s exactly what I delivered,” Gulia added.
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Auckland’s North Shore
- Additional reporting, Amy Houlihan
