The family plays a game of cricket in the backyard. Photo / Josh Burns Up Imagery
The family plays a game of cricket in the backyard. Photo / Josh Burns Up Imagery
It has been another busy and interesting year in our region. We revisit some of our most popular premium stories from 2022. Originally published on January 22.
The two-bedroom Marine Parade home was bought by a Rotorua surgeon and his wife in 1940 for “fairly cheap” and now holds acapital value of $3.68 million.
The 579sq m property is set to be auctioned on February 23.
Stanley and Elsie Wallis bought the land 80 years ago after many years of holidaying in Mount Maunganui.
It was later inherited by their daughter Ynys Fraser who had a "deep love" for the house.
Ynys was known for her contribution to the Rotorua community groups like Friends of QE Health, Zonta, Rotorua Hospice and Friends of the Rotorua Museum.
Since Ynys' passing, her four children decided now was the "right time to let the house go".
Ynys Fraser photographed in May 2017 at the age of 100 holding a photo of her father, Dr Wilfred Stanley Wallis. Photo / Andrew Warner
Ynys' son Iain Fraser, 73, said it had been a "really hard decision" but accommodating everyone at the house was proving more difficult as the family grew.
He said Ynys had 14 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren who have enjoyed many holidays at the house.
"It has just been a marvellous family place. You walk into it and everybody just relaxes." Iain said Ynys' grandchildren were "very sad" about the sale with many just starting to make memories there with their own children.
"It is a meeting place where they all go and share good times together. That side of it has been difficult for us."
Ynys understood the house would be sold eventually and made a provision in her will for a "significant lump" of money from the house sale to be given to various Rotorua charities.
This included the Rotorua Hospice, QE Health Charitable Trust and St Barnabas Church in Ngongotaha.
Iain said the house was of particular "significance" to him because it had been part of his life since before birth.
The master bedroom. Photo / Josh Burns Up Imagery
"When my mother was carrying me there was a polio scare in Rotorua. She decided she wasn't going to risk losing her baby so she came over to the house and spent much of her pregnancy there."
She fed off pipis collected from the beach and refused to have any visitors over to avoid getting sick, he said.
"It has really just been my whole life."
He said every summer since spent at the house had been "idyllic".
Iain and his wife Cathy Fraser at the beachfront house on 39 Marine Parade. Photo / Josh Burns Up Imagery
"We couldn't have asked for more. When we were very young we would wake up at about 6am and would walk for kilometres just collecting shells on the beach. We had heaps of freedom which was wonderful."
These good memories were carried on through the generations with Mount Maunganui being the place where Iain's now 26-year-old son Tom developed a love for surfing.
"We realised from about 3 years old he was determined to be a surfer. It is where he basically learnt to surf. It has been an enormous part of his life ever since. That is one of the things I hold very dearly."
Other holiday traditions included plenty of walks up and around Mauao, climbing up the stack of rocks by Main Beach, swimming out to Rabbit Island and eating pipi fritters.
"The property has given us not only great financial stability but an investment in great memories and great beach time."
The family plays a game of cricket in the backyard. Photo / Josh Burns Up Imagery
Various family members had "left a mark" in the well-loved home over the decades but Iain said this was part of what made it special.
It was old but had the "quirks" of what was "really quite a smart house" in the 1940s.
"Nobody felt a great deal of pressure about the house in that sense. We could relax in it. It was a place where you relax - not to be prim and proper."
The family had "accepted" what could potentially happen to the property once sold and expected change, he said.
"We would just love somebody else to get the pleasure out of the property that we have had but in their own way."
Iain said he always felt a "wonderful sense of relaxation" when he saw another house with an orange tiled roof and hoped this feeling would continue.
Before settling down in Rotorua Ynys' father Stanley Wallis served in WWI treating soldiers from Gallipoli and then those coming off the Western Front.
Stanley and wife Elsie had been renting baches there since the 1920s and soon "fell in love" with the area.
Stanley built the house as a place to holiday, with him and Elsie planning to live there during retirement.
Sam Fraser, 24, makes use of the painting studio built by Stanley Wallis in the 1940s. Photo / Josh Burns Up Imagery
He had a love for painting and made the call to build a studio in the basement.
Avant garde New Zealand painters like John Weeks and Melvin Day would then go on to use the studio over the 1940s and 50s when on holiday.
"So if you find a painting of the Mount from that period it is more than likely to have been done out of that studio," said Iain.
Stanley passed away in 1957 six months after retiring so it "never really became a retirement home" for the pair.
The view from the lounge. Photo / Josh Burns Up Imagery
Mount Maunganui realtor Sandra Power said it was "an absolute honour" to be marketing the "iconic" home.
It was "extremely rare" for sites that had not been subdivided to come available on the Marine Parade block that was "so close" to downtown Mount, Pilot Bay and Mauao, she said.
She anticipated the buyer would either hold it as a land bank and use the house for holidays, build the "ultimate dream home" or a developer would create apartments.
A “blockbuster video” was created over four days as part of the listing with a helicopter hired to capture footage from the air, she said. “Phenomenal listings require phenomenal marketing.”
