The colourful Wellington villa that has given birth to twisted cartoons, distorted heads and piercing social commentary involving a mutated Mickey Mouse has hit the market for sale.
62 Pirie Street, in Mount Victoria, is the much-loved home of award-winning artist Robert McLeod and his educator wife Robyn.
The McLeods are selling up after more than 40 years in what can best be described as a paint box. Listing photos on OneRoof show joy and imagination on every wall of the four-bedroom house.
The doors and window frames are hot pink, artworks fill every available space, sometimes creeping up from the floor, and each room is painted a different colour, from mustard yellow in the kitchen to burnt orange in the bedroom.
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At the back of the house is Robert’s studio, a large white room littered with brushes, paint pots and canvases.
“Rob put colour together in his paintings and he’s done the same in the house, slightly tempered by me,” Robyn told OneRoof.
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Listing agent Amy Allen, from Lowe & Co, said she was blown away by the use of colour in the house. “Wow” was the word that came to mind when asked what her first reaction was.
“There’s red, there’s pink, orange, gold and blue. It also has great skylights to bring the light in and the studio is pretty phenomenal.”
Robyn told OneRoof she bought the former boarding house in the early 1980s. The house had good bones, but needed serious work to bring it up to a liveable standard.
Robert McLeod's artworks can be found throughout the house, sometimes emerging from the floor. Photo / Supplied
The kitchen is a vibrant mustard yellow. McLeod brought his artistic vision to the house's decor. Photo / Supplied
“It was a very run-down and unloved [house],” she told OneRoof. The renovation over the following eight years was a massive undertaking. “In the ’50s they were very keen on concrete, and we had to dig up every piece of the ground.”
The initial work involved a lot of painting to make the home habitable. “You have to be young with a lot of energy to take on the task that we did.”
When Robyn got together with Robert and the latter moved in, the couple set about extending the home to cater for his art and her children’s growing needs.
They built a studio at the back and then added a new level to house the master bedroom and bathroom.
Robyn said architect David McGill, who designed the second storey, did an excellent job. “I keep wanting to see David because I want to say how grateful I am, because of course being an architect, he fussed over everything, including the wood used. So, we were never caught up in any scare about the wrong materials because David was so professional.
A cool aqua colour scheme can be found in the bathroom. Photo / Supplied
McLeod's studio is the beating heart of the house. Photo / Supplied
“I haven’t seen him in town recently, although one of his daughters just bought one of Rob’s paintings.”
The home and studio combined are 230sqm. “It was lovely with a young family, and it was good for teenagers. It was nice as adults to have our own space upstairs,” she told OneRoof.
With no children at home now, the couple are looking to downsize and shift to Auckland.
Robert is one of New Zealand’s most prolific and vigorous artists. He grew up in Glasgow where he studied art in the 1960s, and his form of expressionism is derived from a fascination with the physical properties of paint.
The vibrant property has an RV of $2.36m. Photo / Supplied
One of McLeod's works, Landscape with Exotics, at Edmiston Duke Gallery in 2006. Photo / Martin Sykes
His awards include the 2004 Jury Prize, Wallace Art Awards, 1998 Lillian Ida-Smith Award for Painting, QEII Arts Council Grants in 1977 and 1981, and in 2016 he won the prestigious Molly Morpeth Canaday Award from Craig Investment Partners.
Allen said interest in the house had been strong so far. Within a day of listing the property, she had fielded quite a few enquiries. “It’s families looking to be in the Mount Vic zone, which is always popular, and people who have come back from the UK looking to buy.”
- 62 Pirie Street, Mount Victoria, in Wellington, is for sale by tender, closing September 12
