- 320 Kohimarama Road in St Heliers, Auckland, is back on the market after its historic $10.5 million sale in 2002.
- The 1990s mansion features eight bedrooms, indoor and outdoor pools, a tennis court, and a 12-car garage.
- The property is listed at around $20 million, offering significant development potential on its 6356sqm land.
Most trophy homes aim to set price records when they hit the market. This one's done that, bought the t-shirt.
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320 Kohimarama Road, in Auckland's St Heliers, made the history books in 2002 when it became the first New Zealand house to sell for over $10 million.
It's now back on the market for sale for the first time since that momentous deal, and the agents involved know they've got a whopper on their hands.
Agent Ollie Wall, from Wall Real Estate, said the 1990s solid concrete mansion was “extraordinary” in its sheer scale and magnificence, so much so he gasped when he first saw it.
“I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. The house itself is over 2000sqm; it’s just absolutely absurd.”
The 2345sqm home is one of Auckland's largest and has an RV of $20m. Photo / Supplied
Listing agent Ollie Wall says he was overwhelmed when he first saw the house. Photo / Supplied
The former Dotcom mansion in Coatesville, now owned by the Zuru Toys billionaires, and the Glendowie estate built by rich-lister Graeme Hart are probably the only Auckland homes that could give 332 Kohimarama Road a run for its money in terms of size.
The mansion boasts eight bedrooms, a billiards room, a theatre, a gym, a wine cellar, a bar area, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a sauna, a tennis court, a lift and a 12-car garage. The house next door at 332 Kohimarama Road is included in the offering and is used as the guest quarters.
The combined RV of both properties is over $24m, but the Walls are giving a price indication of around $20m as the mansion is a little dated.
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“I guess if someone were to take it on as a family home, they’d probably want to bring it up to 2026 levels, so that does affect the value,” Ollie told OneRoof.
While that minimised the market a little, it also made it a great opportunity for someone: “You’re buying what should be a $30m house for more like $20m.”
To build the house at today’s prices would likely cost even more, at about $35m, going on $15,000 per metre, Ollie said, adding that the 6356sqm land was zoned mixed housing urban, so had a lot of development potential.
Options included demolishing the house and building terrace housing or perhaps low apartments, or keeping the house but deleting the “giant” indoor pool, which took up an extraordinary amount of room, Ollie said.
The mansion, which was built more than 30 years ago, needs modernising. Photo / Supplied
The large indoor pool was all the rage in the 90s. Photo / Supplied
“It’s an over 25m indoor swimming pool. There are not a lot of people looking for that.”
Buyers who kept the well-designed and solid main house could still develop the second title, though.
Made of concrete, the big house was built in the early 1990s by the Huljich family and was designed by renowned Sumich Chaplin Architects.
While everything in the house was operational, Ollie said anyone spending $20m on the property would likely spend another $1m on a new kitchen, bathrooms and redoing floors and paint.
“It’s all superficial. It doesn’t need anything, but just the tech and the theatre is probably old and naturally needs upgrading after all that amount of time.”
The large billiards room is one of the property's many highlights. Photo / Supplied
The mansion and the adjoining guest house at 332 Kohimarama Road sit on 6356sqm of private land. Photo / Supplied
The property was hidden up a grand driveway, and Ollie "had no idea what I was coming to see. I was absolutely blown away, mostly by the scale. It feels like a luxury resort and has as many rooms as a luxury resort.”
Ollie, who made headlines last year with the $35m sale of property developer Ben Cook's waterfront Herne Bay mansion, thought the year ahead looked to be a busy one at the top end of the market, if the end of last year was anything to go by.
“Last year we sold more houses over $20m than we’ve done any other year, which is a pretty unusual stat given the economic climate in the last five years.”
People at that level had been waiting a long time and had decided it was the right time to dive in, he said.
The properties, which are largely hidden from the road, offer privacy but also clear views of the water. Photo / Supplied
The listing agent estimates that the mansion would cost $35m to build today. Photo / Supplied
“I think people at that level are pretty confident we’ve seen the bottom of the market, and if you’re going to make probably the biggest purchase of your life, it’s probably not a bad time to do it.”
OneRoof wrote about 320 Kohimarama Road in 2023 in an article highlighting New Zealand's record-breaking house sales.
Bayleys agent David Rainbow told OneRoof that the mansion sold for $10.5m in July 2002. The buyer was Chinese, and the deal was brokered through Chinese agents. The sale didn’t make headlines or news reports as it was “completely under the radar”, Rainbow told OneRoof.
Rainbow had nothing to do with the deal but said he had worked closely with the vendor, rich lister Paul Huljich, and helped him grow the size of the property.
Huljich had bought the original plot in 1988, which came with the prep already done for a champion-sized tennis court and concepts for a mansion. Rainbow helped Huljich acquire neighbouring plots to add to the holding before the mansion was built in 1993.
Rainbow still has the typed and spiral-bound booklets, complete with carefully glued colour photos, of the three-storeyed six-bedroom Mediterranean-style mansion. The description of features alone runs for 18 pages.
Luxury touches highlighted in the brochure include piped music, a walk-in catering chiller and self-contained staff quarters.
For many of Rainbow’s buyers, St Heliers was too far out. “They wanted to buy in Remuera or Herne Bay,” he said. “It was a bit like Riddell Road, in Glendowie. But once Graeme Hart started building there, they were like bees to a honey pot.”
- 320 and 332 Kohimarama Road, St Heliers, Auckland, are for sale, tender closing March 2
