- Overseas family snaps up two neighbouring properties in Auckland’s Remuera for more than $11.5m.
- The purchase was exempt from the foreign buyer ban as the buyers are from Singapore.
- They plan to build a new home for visiting family members next to their luxury pad overlooking the harbour.
An overseas family with business ties to New Zealand bought two premium addresses in Auckland’s Remuera at the end of last year, OneRoof can reveal.
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The buyers snapped up the neighbouring properties – one a luxury home designed by one of Auckland’s leading architects, the other a 600sqm section – in October.
Bayleys listing agent David Rainbow, who brokered the deal with colleague Harry Cheng, said the sale price exceeded the $11.5 million the vendors paid in 2020.
The stunning home was designed by Matt Chaplin, of Sumich Chaplin. Photo / Supplied
It is one of just a handful of $10m-plus sales in the suburb in 2024. Others include Grant Dalton’s former home on Victoria Avenue, in Remuera, which fetched $20m in March, and a clifftop home in Burwood Crescent, which got $10.3m in an off-market deal in October.
Rainbow said the Lucerne Road purchase was exempt from the foreign buyer ban because the buyers were from Singapore. “They have owned property in New Zealand and they’ve just upgraded. They just fell in love with the view and the quality of the construction.”
The family had been looking for something special and the solid concrete house, designed by Matt Chaplin, of Sumich Chaplin, ticked all the boxes.
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Rainbow said the address was one of Auckland’s most desirable. “Along that strip from basically 80 right down to the end on the seaward side, they’re all premium properties and everybody seems to hold on to them for a long time,” he said.
The family liked the fact the house faced the sun and had great views and great indoor-outdoor living.
“The problem with a lot of houses is that when they are empty they don’t look as good as when they are full but the previous vendors had left the house in immaculate condition and it looks fabulous whether it’s empty or full, Rainbow told OneRoof.
The Lucerne Road property looks out over the Orakei Basin. Photo / Supplied
“[The new owners] liked it because it’s got three bedrooms upstairs so they have the main bedroom and two children’s bedrooms both with ensuites and the previous home they owned the children didn’t have their own bathrooms so that for the children was a huge benefit.”
The house comes with a heated spa, swimming pool and extensive views over Orakei Basin, the Auckland Harbour and the CBD.
All four bedrooms have separate ensuites, there is a kitchen/scullery and a media room, plus two laundries and space for a wine cellar.
The buyers plan to build a new home on the section directly behind their luxury pad, for family members visiting from overseas.
Several doors along from their new purchase, at 122 Lucerne Road, is a mid-century modern gem on the market for sale for the first time since it was built in the 1960s.
122 Lucerne Road, also in Remuera, is on the market for sale by negotiation. Photo / Supplied
The mid-century gem was designed by noted architect Vlad Cacala. Photo / Supplied
Harveys agent Anna Sareczky told OneRoof the house was built by modernist architect Vlad Cacala in the 1960s and had been owned by the same family ever since.
Cacala was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, but designed many homes in Auckland in the 1950s and 1960s. He even built his own home next door to the one up for grabs.
Sareczky said she had already received a lot of enquiries about the house, including from architects, who were taking the opportunity to have a look while the property was on the market.
Sareczky’s listing describes the property as a masterful combination of form and practicality.
“Exuding cantilevered elegance, this very grown-up family home extends a geniality that transports guests to a time where architecture was the framework for cultural immersion, when stylistic fluency between spaces could form a conversation that lasted for decades,” the listing on OneRoof said.
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Remuera
