Elderly couple's kindness thwarted

A steep-angled driveway on Gary Lane's empty section is the only thing left of a property that sparked a bitter legal wrangle involving Auckland City Council.

In the 70s, elderly Auckland couple Bruce and Gladys Wilkinson donated their Art Deco-style Paritai Drive mansion, and its vast array of collectibles, to the people of Auckland.

They asked to stay in the house until their deaths, at which time it could become a museum for their extensive collection of souvenirs from around the world.

But the council decided to sell the property instead. In 1993, Bruce Wilkinson, whose wife died in 1979, was asked to move out and his collection of thousands of objects was stored at the Museum of Transport and Technology.

Wilkinson, after moving to an Epsom rest home, discovered council plans to sell his beloved "Valpre". After media coverage the council backed away from the sale and leased the property to a couple who began extensive renovations, with the idea of eventually buying the property.

Two years later the council terminated the lease after the couple fell behind in rent. After a legal wrangle, the house was eventually put on the market. Lane bought the house in 1997 for a record $3.6 million. The council said proceeds would go towards renovating the Auckland Town Hall and Civic Theatre, and $500,000 to maintain the Wilkinson collection, housed in Albert Park House.

Two months later Lane bulldozed the partly renovated Wilkinson house, landscaping the grounds and installing the putting course.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY