- Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet and Francis Hooper sold their Freemans Bay villa for $3.6m.
- The villa, filled with WORLD memorabilia, received four offers; one fell through due to financing.
- The couple lived there for 25 years, renovating it with unique features and personal touches.
Fashion icons Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet and Francis Hooper have sold their historic villa in Auckland’s Freemans Bay for $3.6 million, almost $200,000 above the RV.
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Ray White listing agent Luke Crockford said the buyers, a West Auckland family moving into the city from a lifestyle block, were over the moon.
There were four offers on the home, which was packed with memorabilia from WORLD, the fashion brand the couple founded in the late 1980s, and artworks.
One fell through because the buyers could not sell their own home in time, with Crockford telling OneRoof that buyers who were cash-ready had the advantage in the current market.
WORLD brand founders Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet and Francis Hooper. Photo / Norrie Montgomery
The couple filled the grand house, built for Ponsonby’s Tole family, with art, taxidermy and quirky collectables. Photo / Supplied
Selling first might mean renting for a while, the agent said, but it was worth avoiding the pain of “chain” sales.
In Auckland, rental properties were available and renting for six months was not a bad option: “You know, get the property sold, know what money you’re dealing with, take your time to buy your next right house – or you might see it straight away,” he said.
“A lot of people are missing out on the property they love because they are not ready.”
Crockford said Dame Denise and Francis Hooper had decided to sell first and could now look for a property to buy.
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The fashion couple had lived there for 25 years, and for the first 10 of those, they had been concentrating on their business, so the house was in need of an upgrade.
“It’s just deferred maintenance; it’s painting, it’s heating, it’s little things like that, a few windows. But it’s an old kauri villa.”
A OneRoof article from July last year told how the four-bedroom villa bore the fashion couple’s distinct imprint, starting with the green letterbox and eye-catching sculpture at the entrance, and continuing indoors with a hallway stuffed with taxidermy and purple parlour walls.
Dame Denise told OneRoof in July that she fell in love with the villa the first time she saw it. “It was beautiful and empty, with beautiful sash windows. I walked in and went, ‘Oh my God, it’s just magnificent. This is so me’.
"Not bold to me," says Dame Denise of the curved orange deck that is a favourite gathering place to take in the city views. Photo / Supplied
The house still has many of its original features. Photo / Supplied
“I called Francis and said, ‘You’ve got to come and have a look’. He walked in and said, ‘No, we can’t afford it’.”
However, the sale was meant to be, and while the couple’s first offer was knocked back, they got a call from the agent some time later, while they were having dinner at a friend’s home on Waiheke Island.
“The other offer had fallen over, and the owner said, ‘If you come tonight and sign it, you can have it’. So we left the dinner, got on the ferry, and we signed it.”
Dame Denise said the weekend they moved into the house she remembers turning to her daughter Pebbles, then 11, and saying: “It’s so big, we’re never going to fill it. Now look at it.”
The family slowly brought the house to life, upgrading and refreshing when they could.
Dame Denise’s main contribution was renovating the two bathrooms (one in yellow, one in lime green) and adding a curved orange deck at the rear of the house to take in the views of the CBD.
“We thought we needed an amazing deck because the thing about the house is the view. It’s wonderful to have people over. We all stand there and get that incredible view.”
One of the five bedrooms in the big house. Photo / Supplied
Dame Denise said the house was a refuge for the family, and they had made a conscious decision not to open their house to the media.
“We’re very private in the house department, we’ve never had it featured. We’ve had all our friends through, and I always think you can consider yourself a true friend if you’ve been to my house.”
She explained the house’s long history, saying there was an etched window which said: “Tole Estate, 1887”. She understood one of two Tole brothers, of Irish descent, who had lived in Ponsonby since the 1860s, had resided there.
The article said one brother, John, owned land on the western side of Ponsonby Road (hence Tole Street and Tole Reserve) while Daniel lived on a large property on the eastern side of the street – facing College Hill. Both brothers were land surveyors for a time and named Margaret Street after their mother.
The story said the house was on a grander scale than most Freeman Bay homes with two floors, stained glass windows, a columned arch in the hallway, and the original 15-foot ceilings featuring pressed tin work.
The family were used to getting door-knocks from previous residents, keen to share stories of the house and street, said Dame Denise.
“One guy visiting from Australia told me gang members used to live on the street. There were parties every night, and they all used to park their motorbikes along the street. No one would ever complain.
She would miss the house “terribly”, she told OneRoof.
“I love it so much. I have put a lot into it, but it’s given a lot back. Some people spend most of their lives in a house they don’t like, but we have been lucky that we knew from the minute we walked in the front door.”
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