Emotions can bubble close to the surface in auction rooms.
But yesterday’s sale 51 Church Street, in Devonport, in Auckland, was one for the books.
Bayleys agent Linda Simmons told OneRoof: “It was so emotional. My best ever day in real estate.”
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Simmons, who was choked up with tears as she recounted the sale, said: “There were five bidders, and afterwards every one of them went up to give the vendors a hug. When the buyers and sellers met to sign papers, an hour and a half later they were still talking.
“For this house, it’s not just about price, it just captured people’s hearts. I watched people go through the open homes and say ‘it just takes your breath away.”
The property sold for $3.9 million, after vigorous bidding started at $3 million.
“For a house like this, you can’t pick a ceiling [price], it’s about engagement,” Simmons said.
The eventual buyer, an architect from Herne Bay, had been looking on and off for years for a house in Devonport with his artist wife, but had never found anything as nice as the house they lived in, Simmons said.
“He saw it on the last weekend and told his wife, ‘I’ve found the home I love.’”
The house impressed buyers at the open home. Photo / Supplied
The house was owned by local identities Simon and Sarah McIntyre. Sarah is a well-known local school teacher and Simon a full-time artist, and Simmons said the new buyers loved the artistic feel.
Simon is the third generation of McIntyre artists. His famous father, Peter McIntyre is best known for his iconic New Zealand landscapes.
Simmons said that while many of the 250 groups through the property came to see real Peter McIntyre paintings dotted through the house, they stayed for the story of the house. “It was important we found the next custodians.”
The McIntyres' own stories mirrors that of the buyer - they too moved across from Ponsonby, discovering Devonport and 51 Church Street in 1985.
“We both looked at each other and thought, 'Well, that feels really good. This place has serious soul’,” Simon earlier told OneRoof.
The 1850s pioneer cottage has had various iterations through the 1900s, but Simmons says buyers were enchanted by the clever work of architect Malcolm Walker.
The new owner is an architect from Herne Bay. Photo / Supplied
He designed Simon’s “twin peaks” 45 sq m studio in the treetops at the top of the property in 1990 leaving the original two cottages intact, then returned in 2000 for the major renovation that earned him a 2003 national architecture award.
Walker separated and shifted the front cottage forward five metres for new open plan living. He repurposed the original rear cottage into a fire-side sitting room next to a new main bedroom. A return front veranda wraps the old and the new,
Simon described it as “no slavish representation, rather little gestures that make it feel as if it has been like this all the time.
“It’s a modest house in a lot of ways. It’s also a very living house. It’s a house that calls out to be just enjoyed and lived in, and not be pretentious about.”
