SCHOOL ZONES:
Royal Oak School, Auckland Normal Intermediate, Epsom Girls’ Grammar and Auckland Grammar.
CONTACT:
Leila MacDonald, 021 928 926, or David MacDonald, 021 650 901, Barfoot & Thompson.
AUCTION:
March 15 (unless sold prior).
*Plus 3 OSP
Christine and Greg Jones have lived at Puketaha, their gracious Epsom home, for 18 years.
The name is written on the front door and rendered in beautiful carved letters on the native timber fireplace surround in the home's formal living room.
The English translation of Puketaha is hillside, which is apt as just at the end of the street, tree-lined Golf Rd leads on to One Tree Hill and Cornwall Park.
The WWI era house is more bungalow than transitional villa, with arts and crafts and art nouveau details. "From what we can tell it was built in 1915 and dates from the original subdivision of the Auckland Golf Club to form Golf Rd," Christine says.
She and Greg had been living in Mt Eden, but had noticed Puketaha on walks up to Cornwall Park.
Today, the footprint of the house is much as it's always been. The formal living and dining rooms are largely unchanged, with finely detailed leadlight and stained glass windows and glowing native timbers.
The Jones' have made subtle changes over the years, repurposing the billiards room to be the master bedroom and altering an adjacent box room to become a spacious and luxurious master en suite.
Three more bedrooms open on to a terrace, which has been widened, with deep eaves, to accommodate an outdoor dining setting. Infra-red heaters and retractable sides mean this space can be enjoyed year-round.
Working with designer Niel de Jong, of Heritage Design Group, the family added a standalone double garage, accessed from an existing driveway and gates off Ngaroma Rd.
"It's built with a raft foundation system so it doesn't disrupt the roots of the 300-year-old totara alongside it," Christine says.
19 Golf Rd, Epsom, Auckland. Photo / Ted Baghurst
With the new garage built, the family converted a weatherboard single garage on the Golf Rd side into a summer house, with a gym and bathroom.
The summer house, which has a pull-down king-sized bed, has been a teenage hangout and computer game zone.
Between the summer house and main house is a large, heated swimming pool. There's a large lawn and a magnificent puriri tree, complete with a treehouse.
Inside, the family living area is sun-soaked, thanks to a large bay window. Nearby, the Binova kitchen is a couple of years old, designed by Veryan Laity, of IK2 Design. Next to the kitchen, doors open on to a deck and spa pool.
"It gets the afternoon sun here and it's such a sun-trap," Christine says.
The boys have their own large bathroom, plus there's also a separate laundry, with plenty of storage.
Christine says she is a keen gardener and the expansive grounds attest to this. In the formal garden on the Ngaroma Rd side of the property, there's star jasmine, standard bay trees, port wine magnolias underplanted with gardenias, liriope, day lilies and hydrangeas.
The perennial garden on the main lawn on the Golf Rd side has roses, penstemons and delphiniums.
Tall hedging keeps the expansive 1860sq m grounds private. It's lots of fun for Christine's Yorkshire terrier-poodle cross, Gus. "It's like Piccadilly Circus for dogs here," says Christine. "Gus likes to say hello to all passing dogs through the hedge."
After nearly two decades of living in this special family home, the boys are getting older and will be flying the nest in a few years, so Christine and Greg are looking for a smaller property.
