KEY POINTS:
37 ARIKI STREET,
GREY LYNN.
Buying the house that became her home for the next decade was an impulse for actor Amanda Rees and her then partner, Jane Zusters. At the time, they lived on Waiheke Island but Amanda was finding this inconvenient as she performed during the night.
"I was always having to crash on people's floors and never knew where I was going to be from day to day. It was just too unsettling, so when we saw this in the newspaper, we rushed over on the ferry to look at it, fell in love and bought it without a second thought."
It wasn't until they got home that they realised they couldn't remember important things about it, such as whether it had a bathroom (it did), or an oven (it didn't). But none of this mattered. What did was the perfect studio space in the old corner shop for Jane and an indefinable feeling of calm. "The whole house just had this lovely, welcoming, peaceful feeling about it."
In time, Jane moved out and her share of the house was bought by Amanda's new partner, Deb Frame. Jane continued to use the corner shop studio for a couple of years as it has a separate street access and, when this arrangement ceased, Amanda made it the office for her casting business.
"This typifies the way the house has evolved over the years I've lived here. Its spaces are very flexible and the corner room with its street access has been useful in so many different ways."
As villas go, this one is typical of its time, with period features, plenty of space and what's becoming increasingly rare in the area, room to put a personal stamp on it. Four good-sized bedrooms at the front, the central hall and the sunny living space at the rear are all much as would be expected.
But looking up, the ceilings tell another story. In the front two-thirds of the house, most of the ceilings are high even for a villa, but the beamed and slightly lower ones at the rear indicate this part was done in the 1920s when Californian bungalows were the height of fashion.
This rear bungalow-style extension is where the living, dining and cooking takes place. On the northern wall, a sunny bay window, complete with window seat and plush cushions, is the perfect place to watch the world go by from the slightly elevated vantage point it provides. On the rear wall, french doors lead out to a wide north-facing deck - so sunny that until Amanda finished it off with a pergola and roofed area it was almost too bright to sit on.
After a decade, Amanda has decided to move on.
"Deb's been here for years but we want to get somewhere that is totally ours right from the start. That'll be the new journey."
