Holy moly! Pope's house up for grabs

The Lockwood the late Pope used as a dressing room.

A three-bedroom Lockwood home near Howick isn't the most traditional of sacred objects - but one used as a dressing room by Pope John Paul II is for sale on e-Bay for $1.1 million.

The house was used by the Pope, who died in April last year, to put on his vestments before Mass almost 20 years ago.

It was initially put in the Auckland Domain for the Pope to use as a vestry on his visit to New Zealand in November 1986, before it was auctioned off by Lockwood.

On e-Bay the home, just out of Howick, is billed as a "unique opportunity to walk on the floors once graced by the man now expected to become a saint".

The e-Bay advert offers a DVD of the Pope blessing the house and says there's "a high likelihood this is the only house Pope John Paul II has blessed available for sale".

The home owner, Dianne, said a DVD from the TVNZ archives of the Pope's visit showed him at the house performing a blessing, which included throwing holy water on to a post of the house and making the sign of a cross before he entered it.

The crowd behind were singing "bless the house, bless the house".

Dianne said she was selling the house because her family needed a larger home.

She said they were not trying to use the story to make a huge profit from it - just to tell the story behind it. The property also had a second two-bedroom house on it.

They had not known about the Pope's connection until after they bought the house eight years ago.

While not Catholic themselves, she said she believed the Pope's blessing had helped with her husband Ray's chronic leukaemia.

"We are not Catholic, but I believe everyone has their own personal relationship with God. When Ray, about seven or eight months ago, came home from the doctor and said how he had improved, I said, 'That's because the Pope's blessed the house'.

"We aren't saying he's cured, but his health has continued to improve."

Dianne said she would be sad to leave the house.

"We've been here eight years and you do get attached to places."

Catholic Communications spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer said it was unusual the Pope had blessed a building he had used for only a few minutes and those who were with him at the Domain could not recall him doing it.

"To go into a house like that, to put on his vestments for Mass, he would not normally bless it. The Pope, as he was a very prayerful man, may have prayed in that room on his own.

"Of course the DVD may show he did bless it, but the bishops who were with him have no recollection of it."

Mrs Freer said although it was unclear what the normal market value of the property was, the church would deem it "unseemly" to sell at an inflated rate simply because of the papal connection to it.

The house was bought in 1986 by Joe van den Brekel for $126,750 - slightly more than its market value of $110,000. Mr van den Brekel said he considered using it as a holiday home for his wife and nine children, or putting it on his farm, but instead bought a section just out of Howick for $33,000 and sold it on.