965A: Three-bedroom bungalow with one bathroom and single garaging
965C: Former church, renovated as an open-plan space with one bathroom.
Designer Sylvia Sandford says her neighbouring Miranda properties - a renovated kauri church with a lime grove and a 1950s bungalow - embrace the essence of living well in the countryside.
She's owned the former church (originally built as a school in 1884) for a decade, and a few years later purchased the neighbouring bungalow. The lovely kauri church makes for a great character home or function venue, with its picturesque gardens, including a grove of olive trees and some 60-plus lime trees. The 1950s bungalow, with sprawling views, barn and garden studio or library, makes a welcoming rural home. Both properties are on their own titles and buyers can purchase one or both. They're on level, elevated north-facing land; their driveway announced by ancient oaks. The bungalow and former church are a stroll away from each other so can easily operate as two complimentary or independent properties.
"Everybody who comes here loves these properties," says Sylvia. "They embrace the whole essence of living well."
Her original plan was to live in the church, but acquiring the neighbouring bungalow made her plans more fluid. The church's light-filled interior is configured as one very large, elegant open-plan space with a gorgeous bathroom to one side. She has hosted many functions here, from small weddings to significant birthdays. The floor is covered in heated tiles reminiscent of marble, there's a hearty wood-burning open fire and a glorious chandelier hangs overhead.
Sylvia's passionate about retaining the building's integrity. The five sets of doors opening to the outside are placed where windows once were. She loves the building's kauri, and has retained as much as possible in the bathroom, which features an impressive bath and original sash window.
The school/church has been a very significant local building, used for gatherings such as election polling, dances and Plunket. When Sylvia acquired it about a decade ago, it still contained pews and memorabilia. "They had the last funeral, the doors had been closed and that was it." She had the building re-roofed, repaired, re-plumbed, removed its old kitchen and undergrounded the power.
Beneath a thick layer of dirt, Sylvia discovered and unearthed the school's concrete play area, which serves as a sunny patio to the building. "I've got a lovely photo of children sitting at little forms in front of the school."
The church's more than 3000sq m of land is picturesque, with glossy trimmed hedges, the lime and olive trees, and curved arches to a rustic vegetable garden. Sylvia sold the prodigiously cropping limes at the Clevedon Village Farmers Market for three years before deciding she was too busy with other work. (They're now sold through an Epsom cafe.)
She bought the 1950s bungalow in 2004, adding a big north-facing deck to soak up the sprawling views she calls "my big sky" - across to the Firth of Thames, Coromandel Peninsula and Hunua Ranges. She re-carpeted, painted throughout and revised window treatments. The main living area makes you feel instantly welcome, its convivial atmosphere partly due to walls painted a Tuscan gold hue.
"Oscar Wilde always said you should always have a yellow room, because it glows in the sun and cheers you on a grey day," says Sylvia. The space has a wood-burning fire to heat those grey days and two pairs of French doors out to the deck's abundant sunshine.
The central hallway features photos of Sylvia's son Ben whose talent as a skeleton racer (racing, face-down, ice tracks at huge speeds on a brakeless sled) has seen him already represent New Zealand at two Winter Olympics. There are three bedrooms and she has one of these set up as a TV room.
The existing kitchen and bathroom are extremely functional, but Sylvia reckons the bungalow would "absolutely dance" with a new kitchen and bathroom. There's also a separate laundry near the front door.
Some 25 paces from the back door is the detached garden studio, which serves as her library (but could be a sleep-out). Sylvia says she loves strolling out there on moonlit nights. Neatly trimmed hedging introduces the library's front veranda. The interior is painted the atmospheric green-black of Resene "Eternity". As well as housing her library, it's large enough to also hold a dining table. There's a single carport alongside the bungalow and abundant storage in the neighbouring three-bay barn.
Sylvia is finding her work schedule doesn't mesh with owning two properties so she's selling them.
