An Auckland villa that once hosted the Dalai Lama is being auctioned later this month.
In the 1980s, the 10-bedroom villa on Herne Bay’s West End Road was home to Auckland’s Buddhist monks, who hosted the Dalai Lama on one of his visits to the city in the early 1990s.
Ray White agent Jan George, who is marketing the property with Aaron Haabjoern says that the current owners have lived in the house since the mid-1990s, buying it after the monks moved out but leaving the ten bedrooms, four bathrooms and two extra kitchenettes intact.
Neighbours report that the community was beside themselves when the Dalai Lama turned up for a visit and stayed for more than an hour, drinking tea. On one visit, he was accompanied by the young boy designated as the next Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama.
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The 1900s villa on West End Road, in Auckland's Herne Bay, was once home to the city's Buddhist community. Photo / Supplied
Many of the original features of the ten-bedroom house are still intact. Photo / Supplied
After the media scrum, the youngster switched from magnificent red and gold robes into a jacket and gumboots and was seen heading down to Cox’s Bay to kick a football around like a regular kid.
The 1900s bay villa at 24 West End Road, and its neighbour at number 22, was one of a row of turn of the century properties with backyards that sloped down to Bayfield Park and the neighbouring Cox’s Bay Reserve.
The house backs on to Bayfield Park and Cox's Bay, two of the biggest parks in the inner west. Photo / Supplied
George said both properties were sub-divided in 1988 by Chase Coporation, who built six new townhouses below the villas. All eight properties now share a cross-lease.
The current owners have kept the ten bedrooms and four bathroom and two kitchenettes, from when the villa was subdivided into flats, but she says the 361 sqm two-storey home is “absolutely ripe for renovation.
Large decks at front and rear provide outdoor living. Photo / Supplied
“It’s one of the last ones left. There are decks front and back, the rooms are spacious and much of the original character is intact,” she says, adding that buyers will want to explore what options with their architect and Council to return the home to its former glory.
Buyers around Auckland are paying a premium price for villas that have been fully renovated.
A renovated villa in Sussex Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland sold for $3.87m, $1.28m more than it sold for a year ago. Photo / Supplied
In neigbouring Grey Lynn, a four-bedroom villa on Sussex Street, renovated by a name interior designer, sold before auction last week for $3.87m, a gain of $1.28m in just one year since it last sold.
George set a record last November when she sold another original villa in Herne Bay's Hamilton Road for $8m. The landmark home on 2200sqm that had been in the same family for nearly 80 years will be renovated by an experienced developer, who plans to subdivide the site into two plots and restore the villa over a three year period.
An unrenovated villa on a 2200sqm site in Hamilton Road, Herne Bay, sold last year for $8m. Photo / Supplied
An immaculately restored four-bedroom villa in Bellevue Road, Mount Eden sold last month under the hammer for $3.66m, $1.41m above its 2017, while on the North Shore, another renovated four-bedroom villa on Vincent Street, Northcote Point went for $3.6m, twice its 2017 council valuation.
