- The Auckland home where Dragon was formed is for sale after 52 years.

- Roz Stephens bought the Grey Lynn villa for $26,000 as a law student.

- The property, now significantly more valuable, is listed by Ray White agent Jerry Chen.

The Auckland birthplace of legendary Kiwi rock band Dragon is for sale for the first time in 52 years.

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Roz Stephens bought 56 Murdoch Road, in Grey Lynn, for $26,000 when she was a 20-year-old law student at Auckland University.

She got the tip-off that the villa was for sale from Dragon's band members, who spent hours honing their sound in the property's massive basement in the early 1970s.

56 Murdoch Road, in Grey Lynn, Auckland, is worth 100 times more than what the owner paid for it 52 years ago. Photo / Supplied

Dragon in their heyday. The band used to rehearse in the basement of 56 Murdoch Road. Photo / Supplied

Stephens told OneRoof she was volunteering at the Ponsonby Care charity when some of the Dragon band members who were regular visitors mentioned it to her.

At the time, Dragon had yet to achieve rock star status, with their hits April Sun in Cuba and Are You Old Enough? still some time away and were known as an emerging band who rocked The Glue Pot on nearby Ponsonby Road.

When Stephens viewed the property, the band was hanging out there with friends. She remembers opening a trapdoor in the hallway, which the band had installed, and seeing in the basement below lead singer Marc Hunter relaxing on a mattress.

Stephens was interested in picking up the villa after hearing how other students were buying houses and getting in housemates to cover the mortgage. “I thought, ‘Well, this sounds good, I should do it’.”

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She called her mum in Tasmania, who gave her $12,000 for the deposit, and the four-bedroom house was hers.

Not long after, Dragon moved out and shifted to Australia to chase their rock dreams, although their mail, including royalty cheques, still found its way to 56 Murdoch Road.

Stephens discovered that the band regularly played at Glebe Park in Canberra for free so she sent the cheques to a friend who lived nearby. “They played there so often that it was one place you could be sure of getting them, but after awhile I was sending them through to my friend who would take them there.”

Stephens told OneRoof she fell in love with the 1910s house from the moment she saw it. “The architectural features blew me away. I’ve been living here and loving it ever since.”

56 Murdoch Road, in Grey Lynn, Auckland, is worth 100 times more than what the owner paid for it 52 years ago. Photo / Supplied

The Grey Lynn villa still has the original stained glass windows and native timber flooring and wall paneling dating back to when it was built more than a century ago. Photo / Supplied

She added: “The thing I like is that every window has a view of trees or a garden.”

Even the quirky features, such as the light switches being in odd places, added to the charm, she said. It took them a long time to even work out where the switches for the outdoor lights were and they finally found them hiding in the study.

“There are lots of funny things like that. We are sort of having debates – will we tell the next people or will we let them enjoy the hunt?”

Stephens and her husband John are eyeing a move to Tasmania and looking at buying a home close to where she grew up.

However, the decision to sell had not been easy. “We love this house and it’s with a lot of regret that we are putting it on the market,” she told OneRoof.

56 Murdoch Road, in Grey Lynn, Auckland, is worth 100 times more than what the owner paid for it 52 years ago. Photo / Supplied

The property, which is on one of the larger sites in the area, backs onto Grey Lynn Park. Photo / Suppled

Ray White listing agent Jerry Chen said the area had changed significantly in the last 50 years, as had house prices. “It’s quite likely that this house will sell for 100 times what Roz paid for it.”

He added: “You don’t see a lot houses like this one. It’s quite grand.”

Not only did it have an oversized bay window and park frontage, but it also sits on a 632sqm section. Chen said this was significantly bigger than the 420sqm sections typically found in the area.

He said it would suit a family wanting to carry out a renovation or even a developer. “It’s a pretty prominent position being park front. There’s a lot of you can do to it.”

- 56 Murdoch Road, Grey Lynn, Auckland, goes to auction