- Batger House, a heritage villa in Mount Eden, is listed as a mortgagee sale.
- The five-bedroom home was bought for $4.55m two-and-a-half years ago.
- The villa features carved kauri panelling, ornate ceilings, and landscaped gardens.
It’s billed as the “most beautiful villa we’ve seen”, and one of the most amazing homes “to be marketed in a long time”. It’s also the latest in a line of landmark New Zealand properties to be listed as a mortgagee sale
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Batger House, a heritage-protected villa built in the 1890s, hit the market last month as a mortgagee sale after narrowly avoiding the same fate six months earlier.
The five-bedroom landmark home at 358 Mount Eden Road, in Auckland’s Mount Eden, was due to be sold at a mortgagee auction in November last year but was withdrawn from sale.
The forced sale comes two-and-a-half years after the property was snapped up for $4.55 million by buyers looking for a family home.
The heritage home sits on a prominent corner site. The current listing shows only the exterior of the building, not the interior. Photo / Supplied
Barfoot & Thompson agent Ari Tidyman, who listed the villa last year and is selling it again this year, declined to comment on the mortgagee sale.
His listing copy hasn’t changed, and highlights the home’s character features. “With rare character features such as carved kauri panelling, ornate ceilings, bygone wallpaper, a viewing turret and an immaculate facade, this is your chance to own something very special, with room to modernise,” it said.
“The interior layout of the property comprises multiple living areas, a modern kitchen, five bedrooms, a magnificent living room and a detached double garage.
“The grounds of the property are landscaped with mature gardens, maintained lawns with the property backing onto Mt Eden.”
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Tidyman’s listing does not show any photos of the villa’s interiors, and encourages interested buyers to get in touch.
The villa, which sits on a corner 1341sqm section, has an RV of $4m.
The ornate building is named after prominent 19th-century Auckland businessman and property developer John Batger.
When it hit the market in May 2023, OneRoof ran a profile of the house and its vendor.
The vendor, Mark Townsend, told OneRoof that he bought the house with his late wife Del in the late 1980s and spent the subsequent decades bringing it back to life and extending its footprint.
Townsend said he studied the home’s original features and set about recreating many of them in the new extension. “I found a clever man in Onehunga who was able to make copies of the figures that are found on the friezes throughout the rest of the house,” he said, adding that he obsessively matched paints and finishes to ensure the home’s cohesion.
The listing photos from 2023 show what the interiors looked like back then. Photo / Supplied
The home’s rich heritage was carefully and painstakingly preserved. Photo / Supplied
Period wallpaper, including designs by Victorian artist William Morris, was a key feature of the home in 2023. Photo / Supplied
He said that the couple wallpapered most rooms with period-appropriate patterns – including designs by Victorian artist William Morris, and devotedly looked after the hand-painted ceilings in the main lounge, which evoke a sense of the magnificent Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Townsend’s listing agent, Barfoot & Thompson’s Leila MacDonald, was also the listing agent when he bought the property. “I remember how funny it was because Mark and Del made their best offer to the previous owner, and he said it was $5000 too much and instructed me to go back to them with a reduced price. It’s the only time something like that has happened in my entire career,” she told OneRoof in 2023.
Batger House is the latest high-end mortgagee sale on OneRoof.
Last month OneRoof reported that a multimillion-dollar country estate linked to former New Zealand cricket star Adam Parore found a buyer less than two months after it was listed as a mortgagee sale.
The castle at 430 Hawkins Hill Road, in Brooklyn, once housed Woofington’s, a luxury hotel for dogs. It is listed as a mortgagee sale on OneRoof. Photo / Supplied
The six-bedroom trophy home on Papakura-Clevedon Road, in Clevedon, was the home of Kiwi interior designer Danielle Francis, who was previously married to Parore.
And an architectural stunner that inspired a former All Black fetched $110,000 over its RV at a mortgagee auction in May.
Multiple bidders competed to own the distinctive four-bedroom house designed by award-winning architect Chris Tate in Auckland’s Remuera, with the hammer coming down at $2.56m.
In Wellington, an iconic hilltop castle at the centre of a new true crime documentary hit the market as a mortgagee sale.
The former luxury dog retreat, known as Woofington’s, is heading to auction on July 17, almost a year after it last sold.
The property, a distinctive yellow chateau at 430 Hawkins Hill Road, in Brooklyn, was snapped up in October last year for $3.2m - below its RV of $3.68m. It is now listed with Harcourts agents Paul Yianakis and Ken Dentice.
The listing follows the release of TVNZ’s new true crime documentary about the property, What the Hell Happened at Woofington’s?
- 358 Mount Eden Road, Mount Eden, Auckland, is for sale, tender closing July 23
