Potential buyer for Philip Polkinghorne and Pauline Hanna’s former Remuera home

• A potential buyer has been found for the Remuera mansion where Pauline Hanna was found dead in 2021.
• Hanna’s husband Philip Polkinghorne was charged with her murder, before being acquitted following an eight-week trial in the High Court at Auckland last year.
• The four-bedroom home, designed by Aimer Naismith, has a rating valuation of $6.2 million.

A potential buyer has been found for the multimillion-dollar Remuera mansion at the centre of one of the most salacious murder trials in New Zealand history.

The modern, two-storey home was previously owned by retired eye doctor Philip Polkinghorne, who was last year found not guilty of killing his health boss wife Pauline Hanna at the Upland Rd house.

It’s the third time the home has been put on the market.

The former Remuera home of Philip Polkinghorne and wife Pauline Hanna is being sold by Bayleys. Polkinghorne was last year aquitted of murdering Hanna, after her body was found in the Upland Rd home in 2021.

Inquiries had been light but a potential buyer had been found, Bayleys agent Gary Wallace told OneRoof today.

The four-bedroom Aimer Naismith-designed home, which is on the market with a March 20 set sale date and has an RV of $6.2 million, was “not under contract yet”, Wallace said.

Polkinghorne’s name is no longer on the title and his client was Polkinghorne’s sister, the real estate agent said.

A composite image showing the Polkinghorne/Hanna home, with inset photo of Pauline Hanna and husband Philip Polkinghorne. Hanna died in 2021, with her husband later aquitted of her murder.

Police charged Polkinghorne with the murder of his wife in 2022, more than a year after he woke to find her body in their home on Easter Monday 2021.

Polkinghorne was accused of strangling the 63-year-old Counties Manukau District Health Board executive project director and then staging the scene to look like a suicide.

During the eight-week trial at Auckland’s High Court Polkinghorne’s hidden life – an expensive meth and sex worker habit, and the serious intimate relationship he’d developed with Sydney-based escort Madison Ashton – was exposed to a stunned national audience.

Madison Ashton; and Philip Polkinghorne.

Evidence was also heard from others – including an email Hanna sent to herself – of her secret self-doubt and depression.

In September a jury acquitted Polkinghorne of murdering Hanna.

The former Remuera residence of Philip Polkinghorne and wife Pauline Hanna is “a fantastic family home, a solid design”, Bayleys agent Gary Wallace says.

The couple’s former home would find a buyer “who is accepting [of its past] and is looking forward”, Wallace told OneRoof.

“We know there has been a death in the house. It is unfortunate and we’re very respectful of that,” he said last month.

On a 718sq m site overlooking Auckland’s Ōrākei Basin, the 376sq m house is “a fantastic family home, a solid design”, Wallace said.

Polkinghorne transferred ownership of the property to his sister at the end of last year.

He no longer lived at the house he had once shared with his wife of 24 years, and was “looking forward to the future”, the 71-year-old told the Herald.

“Where I have moved to is my personal business.”

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