It’s said that a feisty former resident of the 131-year-old renovated cottage for sale at 16 Walter Street in Te Aro, Wellington, used to chase council officers away with a broomstick when they came knocking.
The council wanted to industrialise this part of Te Aro in inner-city Wellington and set about bowling the other cottages in the street, says Tommy’s agent Alice O’Styke.
Molly Molloy, the resident, was having none of that and held out, O’Styke says, and that’s why the little cottage where she lived for 60 years survived and finds itself once again on the market, for buyer enquiries over $935,000.
“She was quite well-known in the street and she would chase people with her broomstick and she just wouldn't sell out to the council,” says O’Styke, who is marketing the property as a Wellington icon.
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At 80sqm and with two upstairs bedrooms, it is not that much bigger than a tiny house but – and O’Styke says this is rare for Wellington’s CBD – it is not only freestanding but features an inner-city backyard garden.
“It’s so picturesque when you walk past it,” she says of the lilac cottage which used to be a hot pink.
“It’s so gorgeous. It’s got the most amazing street appeal with those gorgeous trees in front.”
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The cottage also has an illustrious past since Molly Molloy lived in it. Current owner Mary Varnham, founder of independent publishing company Awa Press, used the cottage as offices so it has seen some great Kiwi authors pass through the doors.
Varnham calls the cottage “Molly’s Cottage”, describing it as a “charming reminder of Wellington’s colonial history”.
She says when she had fulfilled her lifelong dream to open a small publishing company and was looking for new premises her husband spotted an ad for Molly’s Cottage in the business section of the paper.
The interior has been updated to include modern stylings and fittings. Photo / Supplied
The upper level of the cottage boasts two "cosy" bedrooms. Photo / Supplied
“There had originally been 10 cottages just like it in the street,” Varnham says.
“When the city council decided to buy them, demolish them, and turn the street into an industrial area Molly was the only hold-out.
“She simply refused to sell. A car repair shop went up along the road. The cottage next to Molly’s was pulled down and turned into a car park. Molly remained.”
In the 1980s, artist Grant Tilly and writer David McGill visited the street and Molly bemoaned to them the city was being “turned over to cars”.
The men went on to publish a drawing of the cottage and an article about the street in the book Compleat Wellington Cityscapes.
The article told how the street had been hit by “a mechanical hurricane”, in reference to the demolitions, and described Molly as “the last obstacle” between the council and the redevelopment of the street.
The cottage also features on the Wellington City Council website where it is described as a worker’s cottage of a type once common throughout Te Aro.
The entry gives some history, including that it was damaged by a house fire caused by an unattended candle back in 1905. Also injured were, “Mr John Weston, his wife and two of their children. All appear to have survived,” says the site.
The house was insured for 220 pounds and was thought to have been substantially rebuilt, the site added.
The 80sqm cottage sits on a 104sqm section in the heart of the capital. Photo / Supplied
Varnham says Molly was long gone when Awa Press moved in and the company worked happily there for several years, holding book launches in the garden.
When the company grew too big the property was tenanted, including by a successful artist who painted in the front room and showed her work at an art gallery on Cuba Street, about two minutes’ walk away.
Varnham says the cottage has been maintained in good order with regular re-paintings, an upgraded kitchen and bathroom, a new roof and new guttering, and there are skylights in the bedrooms.
A gardener has cared for the garden which has an “astonishingly productive lemon tree”, she says.
O’Styke says the cottage has seen the area change from residential to industrial commercial and of late back to residential with the advent of apartments and townhouses.
She says it’s a great alternative to an apartment as it is freehold with no body corporate and is in an “unbeatable” location.
- 16 Walter Street, in Te Aro, Wellington, is looking for buyer enquiries over $935,000
