- The dome home in Eltham, designed by architect Gavin Robins for his brother All Black Bryce Robins, has sold.
- The current owners renovated the property, spending 18 months restoring the garden and upgrading the house.
- Agent Rebecca Bruce noted the home’s appeal for families, highlighting Eltham’s affordability and community amenities.
An unusual-looking dome home once owned by a former All Black in the Taranaki dairy town of Eltham has found a buyer.
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The three-bedroom property on Chartwell Drive was scooped up last week after four months on the market.
The four connected pods have long been the talk of Eltham since they were created by architect Gavin Robins for his rugby-playing brother Bryce more than 40 years ago.
Bryce’s claim to fame is his call-up to the All Blacks in 1985 for their tour of Argentina. He’s also the father of Bryce B Robins, who played for the Hurricanes and has represented Japan.
The home was designed in the 1970s by architect Gavin Robins for his rugby-playing brother Bryce. Photo / Supplied
The vendors put their own stamp on the home including painting the interior and installing double glazing. Photo / Supplied
The house changed hands a few times since Robins Sr lived there, with the current vendors picking it up in 2021.
The couple, who had been living in a “cookie-cutter” home in nearby Harewa, instantly fell in love with the property while searching for something smaller that would allow them to go mortgage-free.
They said they had spent most of the last four years upgrading the home and its unexpectedly large garden. The 130sqm house sits on a 1200sqm section, which they only discovered while exploring the neighbouring reserve. They realised that the overgrown area and estuary beyond their front lawn actually belonged to them.
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One of the vendors told OneRoof in February that the garden had been neglected for so long that it was impossible to access the house from the bottom of the hill.
“It was overgrown, and it was a dump. Everyone in the neighbourhood, I think, left their rubbish there. You couldn’t really see the house from the creek side,” the vendor said.
The couple, who are selling up to go on a caravan tour of New Zealand, told OneRoof they spent a year-and-a-half cleaning up the area, first with the neighbour’s goat and then with good old-fashioned weed-whacking.
A landscape gardener then spent two days creating a blank canvas for them. The result was an extensively planted terraced garden leading down to the stream.
The couple spent 18 months creating a dream garden out of what had become a dumping ground. Photo / Supplied
Listing agent Rebecca Bruce, of McDonald Real Estate, declined to say who bought the home or comment on the sale price, but the property was listed as seeking offers over $429,000.
In her listing on OneRoof, Bruce said the house’s “style and flair” were “straight out of the latest edition of [a] house and garden magazine”, adding that the “unique residence is more than just a house, it’s a holistic living experience”.
Bruce told OneRoof in February that the house was well known in Eltham and her clients had done a great job renovating their dome home.
She said Eltham was a town where Kiwis could afford to live mortgage-free, as her vendors had done. “You can get a really lovely house for under $500,000 in Eltham,” she said.
“Stratford is only five minutes down the road and it is more expensive. The further you get from New Plymouth, the cheaper the houses get.”
The agent said Eltham was a great place to live. “We’ve got everything that you need – your bakery, your hairdresser. You’ve got Farm Source for all your livestock needs and all that kind of stuff, and the Four Square is really good here as well.
“There’s no reason to have to go to the big shopping centres unless you want to.”
- Click here to see more houses for sale in Taranaki
