Judith Macneil first saw 8 Cooney Place while out on a ramble in the early 1990s. There was no doubt in her mind that the Arts & Crafts-style house designed by Terry Hitchcock and the fabulous garden that surrounded it were meant for her.
There was a tiny problem, though. The Te Puke property, known as Farleigh, was not for sale. But the house chose her as much as she chose it, and before long Macneil was officially the owner.
Thirty years later, Macneil is moving to Arrowtown to be near her son (Oliver Road Luxury Real Estate founder Cameron Winter) and grandchildren and has put the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house she loves on the market for $1.975 million.
Macneil remembers speaking to the former owners, kiwifruit stalwarts Marge and Harry Prew, through a window while out on her auspicious ramble.
Start your property search
“I asked her [Marge] who the architect was. I said, ‘If I ever build a house, I want this architect, and if you ever sell this one, I want it’.”
Not long afterwards Macneil spotted the house in a book on New Zealand houses. She started following the work of the architect, who was based in Auckland but had designed several homes in the Bay of Plenty.
At the time, Macneil and her late husband Warren and their two small boys were living in a house in Papamoa that she didn’t much like. They also owned a bed and breakfast in Ohakune, and when they sold that, they started looking for another home.
Macneil with her real estate son Cam Winter. She is selling up to be closer to him and his young family in Queenstown-Lakes. Photo / Supplied
The house was designed by renowned Auckland architect Terry Hitchcock. Photo / Supplied
Luck was on her side. “I was sitting in a café with a girlfriend and opened up the Herald, and there was a half-page feature on this house. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, that’s my house’.”
Macneil was disappointed to find it was already under contract, but she wasn’t out of contention altogether. While at a social function, she started talking to a newly qualified real estate agent. Guests joked that the agent could sell Macneil’s Papamoa house, to which Macneil added: “The one I want is gone. Nothing else is going to match it.”
A short time later, the agent noticed that the for-sale sign was still outside 8 Cooney Place. Macneil raced over and learned that Marge Prew had died. Harry was selling the house, and even though the house was under contract, he invited Macneil to make a counter-offer. She did, and he accepted it.
“In those days you didn’t do any due diligence or anything. If you loved the house, you just bought it,” said Macneil.
Discover more:
- Tony Alexander: What the surprise OCR hold means for mortgage rates, house prices
- 'What have I done?': Agent's post-reno panic turns to $500-a-night success
- Jay-Jay Feeney's $1.2m apartment sells fast, but radio star takes a hit
“Mind you, it was only 12 years old at that point, but it had the bones of a lovely established garden, which apparently the layout had originally been designed by Nancy Tishborne, who was that famous watercolour painter and she at that point lived in Rotorua and she was doing some landscape design, so it had a lovely layout.”
The price ($275,000 in 1994) was a stretch for the family, but they wanted the house so much they went unconditional with a long settlement, during which time Harry also died.
Fortunately, the agreement had stipulated that if anything did happen to Harry, the deal would stand.
One thing Macneil loved about the house was that it did not scream the 1990s, 80s or 70s. “There was nothing about it that could indicate whether it was an old house or a new house because it’s got the old Marseille tile roof, and they came off a building in Auckland complete with the moss.
“Harry evidently insisted they didn’t clean the moss off and we didn’t for some time, and then we thought we’d better because it compromises the roof a bit, but it gave it a really established feel, and yet it had modern convenience.”
The fact it was unlike other early colonial villas or bungalows to be found in New Zealand appealed to Macneil.
Macneil likes that the house doesn’t feel dated and has a distinct European flavour. Photo / Supplied
“This feels English or European or something. It’s funny because whenever people have come here on garden rambles, you’ll get a Dutch person who will say, ‘I feel like I’m back in the Netherlands’, or a French person who will say ‘I feel like I'm back in France’, or someone will say ‘this feels like I’m in Italy’ or an English person will say ‘it’s so English, isn’t it?’.”
It was the outdoors, though, that Macneil really fell for. She found the sandy Papamoa soil challenging, but Te Puke’s soil was rich. “It’s heaven for a gardener because you’ve got real soil, you’ve got very friable soil.”
The half-acre garden had big established trees but no fruit trees, but now “there’s just about every fruit tree you could imagine and more than you could eat”.
There’s also a potager garden, developed with a landscape designer, out the front only a few steps from the kitchen. “I buy very little in the way of fruit and vegetables. At the moment I’m eating asparagus, lettuces, all sorts of different greens; we’ve got kale and spinach and all sorts out there.
“Over the years we’ve just constantly changed things and added things. We added a beautiful big courtyard out the back and put a great big outdoor fireplace in. We had that finished just in time for our 25th wedding anniversary party out there.”
Macneil added a big conservatory and refreshed the kitchen. Photo / Supplied
About 10 years ago they added a big conservatory and, with a designer, redid the kitchen into an entertainer’s kitchen.
Over the years, she and Warren took in people from around the world who came to work in the kiwifruit industry, and the house accommodated them easily; earlier, they turned part of the garage into a big office with lovely views.
Warren died in an accident two years ago, and Macneil says the time has come to move south to be near her son, Cameron, and his boys.
Winter (who took on a joint surname with interior designer wife Isis Winter) is based in Queenstown-Lakes and is now struggling with something he has walked hundreds of clients through: saying goodbye to the home where he grew up.
“From age four, this was my home. It is heart-wrenching to see it go to market, and I feel the emotions of 1000 vendors whom I’ve helped through the same process, without ever truly understanding what it feels like.”
Winter says the Prews created a special environment in Cooney Place: a cobbled lane and driveways but no fences between the properties, all of which are tightly held.
“It was an interesting home in terms of architecture and layout and things. I think as a kid you don’t have the context. You don’t realise that so much, but you do, I suppose subconsciously or otherwise, feel that when you go to someone else’s home, and it’s white walls and flat ceilings and things, that there’s something a bit different about it.
“It was a wonderful place to explore. It’s not too quirky or castle-like but certainly some nooks and crannies, and being on the edge of a native bush-covered bank that goes down to some farmland, that was really cool. We spent hours down there building forts and doing stuff.”
Asked if he had advised his mother as she readies to sell, Winter says he tells potential clients to bear in mind that while the changes they have made are important to them, potential buyers see a property through their own eyes.
Buyers might acknowledge the years of effort and weekends spent creating a particular feature, but that might be the exact spot they envisage putting a pool.
His mother is emotionally and intellectually intelligent, he says, and has been “amazing” as she gets ready for the move, clearing out 30 years of “stuff”.
The property is being sold by Oliver Road Bay of Plenty agents Ben Hawan and Jason Eves, and Winter says the listing is headlined Garden and Arts in honour of his parents’ long association with the Bay of Plenty Garden and Art Festival. “Mum and dad were patrons of the Garden and Arts Festival, and the response of people is always just outstanding. It’s been a crowd favourite.”
- 8 Cooney Place, Te Puke, Western Bay of Plenty, is for sale for $1.975m
