Demolition fears for Sir Ed's home

A neighbour has described Sir Edmund Hillary's home as a 'dog.' Talk around the Remuera neighbourhood suggests that it will be bulldozed. Photo / Herald on Sunday

The future of Sir Edmund Hillary's home is uncertain, amid family fears that it may be bulldozed by its new owners, and the mountaineer's Himalayan pine chopped down.

Sir Edmund's daughter Sarah Hillary said she would be saddened if the house was knocked down.

"I would prefer if someone lived there happily but I can't control what happens," she said.

The family has moved the furniture from the two-storey Remuera house that Sir Edmund built in 1956, three years after conquering Everest.

In the final weeks before the sale's settlement date next month, Sarah and the extended Hillary family have been collecting feijoas and guavas from the trees down the bottom of the yard, for the last time.

"We are going to have a family farewell," Sarah Hillary said. "We will just get on to the property and say goodbye, but we want to make it a happy occasion, a celebration."

There is local tittle-tattle that the house has been bought by a neighbour, and will be demolished.

Sarah Hillary said she understood that Terry Jarvis and his wife, who live next door, had bid for the house, and that the tall Himalayan pine - which Hillary planted in the 1950s - obscured their view.

But Jarvis, a multi-millionaire co-founder of Sky TV and former New Zealand cricketer, insisted yesterday that he was not the purchaser. He told the Herald on Sunday to call him back in an hour's time, but did not subsequently take or return calls.

David Rainbow, the Bayleys real estate agent who auctioned the house, said the Hillary family would like the closure of knowing who had bought the property, and what the buyer's plans were for the house. In 25 years, he said, he had never sold a house without knowing who the buyer was.

The property sold for $1.93 million, but, according to the government valuation, most of the value was in the prime Remuera land. The house itself was valued at only $300,000.

One neighbour said the only reason to keep the building would be "sentimental value", as it would cost a lot to restore. It would be far more economic to redevelop the site but there would be "a public outcry".

A former neighbour said the house was "nondescript".

"Anyone who had been in there will tell you it's a dog, you know, and if you can find anyone to say it's a home that you would love to live in, then the next place they need to go to is the nuthouse."

But, he added, the new owners would become "public enemy number one" if they flattened the house.

Russel Norman, the co-leader of the Green Party, said the new Government's proposed changes to the Resource Management Act make it easy for landowners to chop down historic trees on their properties.

Sarah Hillary said the tree was not protected, and so could be vulnerable. She rued the changes to the neighbourhood that put the house and tree under threat.

"What we would have preferred is that a family moved into it and wanted to do it up and live happily like we did, but we realised we had to be realistic here," she said.

"It's actually a really nice house and even though there hasn't been rave reviews about the architecture, it is a really nicely-built house and very comfortable to live in."

Although proposals to turn the house into a museum had never been practical, in her view, she said it would be nice for the house to be preserved in some way.

"I probably won't see it again once it has changed hands, so I will move on."

The area is now dominated by big electronic gates and walls and security cameras overlooking swimming pools.