- Heritage-protected Batger House in Auckland has sold after being listed as a mortgagee sale.
- The villa carried a $4 million RV, after previous owners bought it for $4.55 million.
- Wellington’s former Woofington’s dog retreat is another recent high-end mortgagee listing, priced at $2.25 million.
It was 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 in June as a mortgagee sale after narrowly avoiding the same fate six months earlier. It has now found a new owner.
Barfoot & Thompson agent Ari Tidyman confirmed to OneRoof that the five-bedroom home on Mount Eden Road, in Auckland’s Mount Eden, had sold. He declined to reveal the sale price, although the property had an RV of $4m and was looking for buyers with over 43m to spend.
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 The property was due to be sold at a mortgagee auction in November last year but was withdrawn from sale, before returning to market in June this year.
The heritage home sits on a prominent corner site. The most recent listing showed only the exterior of the building, not the interior. Photo / Supplied
Tidyman's listing copy hadn’t changed in the interim. “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.”
The villa, which sits on a corner 1341sqm section, was named after prominent 19th-century Auckland businessman and property developer John Batger.
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Tidyman’s listing did not show any photos of the villa’s interiors, but when the property was listed in May 2023, OneRoof ran a profile of the house that hinted at what was inside.
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.
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 and has an asking price of $2.25m. Photo / Supplied
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, passed in at auction on July 17, almost a year after it last sold, and now has a price tag of $2.25m.
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?
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