”This is a property that has so many options.”
Rosalynde Stewart’s childhood was one big drama in a home that doubled as a stage. There wasn’t anywhere in the house that was off-limits to her mother Ngaire, who taught speech and drama here in the 1950s.
Steve Stone of Ray White is bringing the house at 193 St Johns Road to auction on March 4.
Ngaire Lovie — as she was known professionally — put productions together and her engineer husband Keith busied himself in the wings, building scenery and props as stage manager.
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Their respective careers flourished and the little two-bedroom home was twice extended to add teaching and family space for Rosalynde and her younger sister Victoria.
Back in 1948, when it was built, the house stood out in a new suburb that grew out of the surrounding farmland. Keith bought it for £3000 in September 1951, just before he and Ngaire married.
By 1962, their front living room was woefully inadequate as both a teaching studio and a family lounge. Besides, the girls were out-growing their shared bedroom with its two built-in single beds and built-in dresser.
The Stewarts added a second lounge/studio beyond the double glass doors etched with the figure of a ballerina off the dining room.
At the end of the studio and beyond wall-like bi-fold doors, they added a bedroom for Rosalynde that she accessed through a door off the kitchen.
The bi-fold doors became the backdrop for portable steps that Keith built for students taking “the stage” for their recitals. For bigger productions or rehearsals, the doors were opened up so Rosalynde’s bedroom effectively became the stage.
In 1983-84, Ngaire got the second upstairs teaching space she’d dreamed of, complete with a view of the sea from its balcony.
It was an outlook that nurtured her till she stopped teaching the year before she died in 2007, at the age of 87.
This room was special to Keith, too. He loved sharing the sunsets behind One Tree Hill with Rosalynde when she cared for him. He died last October at the age of 102.
Today, as Rosalynde packs up decades of memorabilia, she is surrounded by so many significant features in this house, including native timber floors and the original blue and white kitchen.
Keith’s legendary inventiveness is evident in the motor that powered the central heating system. His colour is in the dahlias he propagated in their garden.
Throughout multiple living areas there is evidence of Ngaire’s love of colour and texture.
“This is a property that has so many options,” says Steve Stone of Ray White.
