Come in - Jim's place is our place

By AUDREY YOUNG

OPEN HOME

Where: the "people's palace," aka Vogel House, former prime ministerial residence.

Value: $2.4 million.

Owner: Ministerial Services.

Former tenants: Sir Robert Muldoon, David Lange, Sir Douglas Graham.

Present tenants: Alliance leader Jim Anderton, wife Carole and - says Mr Anderton - the ghost of Muldoon.

Where: set in 4.5ha of land, 75 Woburn Rd, Lower Hutt.

When: Sunday, April 16, noon.

Why: "To demonstrate that a new era of inclusive and accountable government has begun."

Entertainment: NZ string quartet, welcome speech from Mr Anderton.

Let yourself loose in this decorator's dream and do what you will with the cracked lounge ceiling, fur-like cream carpet, mustard wallpaper, plastic floral arrangements and the cottage garden and a canary yellow room styled by Lady Beverley Graham. Don't walk into this room with a hangover, the tenant warns.

Mr Anderton gave reporters a preview of the "open home," which he says is proof of a new era of inclusive and accountable government. Such was his accountability, he even let reporters roam around his spacious bedroom, and poke into his pantry.

(The gingernuts were not part of his successful diet and, as he pointed out, they were not opened.)

Mr Anderton and his landscape gardener wife, Carole, plan to convert Lady Beverley's cottage-style garden back to a more stately creation.

He says he wants to give the community a sense of owning the state mansion.

But he may have other motives for throwing open the doors.

If he is to get money to do the place up, he has to soften up the people before softening up Prime Minister Helen Clark to agree.

"People think, 'Gee, this is Vogel House,' but you realise a lot of state houses are renovated better than this."

Mr Anderton calls it "the people's asset" and says the state must take better care of it, or not own it at all.

It is a pristine palace on the outside, but the inside show signs of a house neglected for 25 years - since Sir Robert Muldoon turned it into an official residence.

Alliance MPs and officials turned up in their bumper-sticker cars yesterday to a caucus at Vogel House, eating their buffet lunch off the 22-seat dining table.

But Mr Anderton says he shares the house with the spirit of Sir Robert, who wouldn't budge from it after his 1984 election defeat.

"The first time I came in here, he was here. I could just feel his presence," said Mr Anderton in the windowless room in which Sir Robert composed his speeches.

"But the idea of sitting here locked away is a bit grim."

Vogel House was built in 1933 for James Vogel, a grandson of Prime Minister Sir Julius Vogel, and his new wife, Jocelyn Riddiford, by her parents. It was bequeathed to the Crown in 1965.

The last word goes to Lady Beverley, who defends that yellow room: "I loved it. It was nice and bright and very refreshing."