The Auckland mansion that famously hosted Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards after he underwent life-saving brain surgery has sold for $8 million, OneRoof can reveal.
The luxury five-bedroom home on St Vincent Avenue in Remuera was snapped up in May this year after hitting the market in February, but the sale price has remained private until now.
Known as Cotter House, the house was where Richards spent a month recuperating in 2006 after he slipped off the branch of a dead tree in Fiji at the end of a Stones tour.
The now 77-year-old Richards suffered a serious head injury and was taken to Auckland for cranial surgery.
Start your property search
In an interview with the New Zealand Herald in 2014, he said: "Because I couldn't do anything, couldn't go anywhere because half my head was shaved off and I wasn't about to go down to 'what wig should I wear?'
"So I spent a very nice three or four weeks with Gloria [Poupard-Walbridge, Cotter House's then owner and landlady] ... and I just learned how to relax for a bit. You don't often get that time off."
The transformed Cotter House is on the market for sale. Photo / Supplied
The house boasts an inviting outdoor swimming pool. Photo / Supplied
The two-storey mansion, which sits on nearly 1400sqm of flat land in double grammar zone and had a 2017 CV of $7m, has changed quite a bit since Richards stayed there and has quite storied history.
It was built in the mid-19th century by English colonist and prohibitionist Joseph Newman, who was killed after a whiskey hoarding fell on his head.
When the Cotter family bought the house in 1892, they reputedly added on the ballroom hoping soirees there would help marry off their three unwed daughters.
For more than 20 years it was home to Auckland hotelier Poupard-Walbridge, whose French diplomat husband bought it in 1995 for just over $1m.
Richards leaving Ascot hospital in Auckland in 2006 after undergoing brain surgery. Photo / Getty Images
She restored the house to its former Regency glory and ran it as a boutique hotel, In 2017 she sold up, for $4.9m, in order to retire. "It's always been my baby, but I want to be able to go on holiday," she said at the time. It's extremely time consuming. It will eat you up if you let it," she told the New Zealand Herald at the time.
The new owners spent three years transforming the house back into private residence, adding a new outdoor swimming pool and garage, re-siting the kitchen and renovating and redecorating throughout.
Ray White agent Simon Siddells, who brought the home to market this year, told OneRoof in March that the owners had managed to upgrade the house into one of Remuera's finest. "It's the ultimate home for modern family living. Brilliant as an entertainers’ home, perfect for children and all their friends and incredibly easily maintained."
The renovated games room has its own bar at Cotter House that catches the eye. Photo / Supplied
One of the home's many living areas. Photo / Supplied
The $8m sale is one of several big ticket real estate transactions in Remuera this year. The top settled sale price for 2021 in the suburb is $15.6m, for a meticulously restored five-bedroom mansion on Victoria Avenue.
