Balmy nights in private paradise

27b Maritime Tce, Birkenhead Point. Photo / Ted Baghurst

27B MARITIME TERRACE, BIRKENHEAD POINT

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SIZE: Land 1007sq m plus driveway (1/3 share of 753sq m), house (approx) 290sq m.

PRICE INDICATION: Buyers around $2 million. Auction August 8 (unless sold prior).

INSPECT: Sat/Sun 1-1.40pm.

ON THE WEB: barfoot.co.nz/501832

SCHOOL ZONES: Northcote Primary, St Mary's School, Birkenhead School, Northcote College.

CONTACT: Fran and Phil Weinstein, Barfoot & Thompson Birkenhead, ph (09) 480 9029, 021 432 432 (Fran) or 021 567 567 (Phil).

FEATURES: Contemporary home secreted along a waterfront reserve with views over Little Shoal Bay. Fenced and gated with multiple living areas and flow to front courtyard and seawards covered loggia.

An eccentric turban-wearing 1920s scientist played his hand in Jillian Burlton-Bennet and her partner, Alain Badoux, finding this coastal property secreted away amidst "nature's playground".

As youngsters, Jillian and her sister rowed across Little Shoal Bay from their Northcote Point home to play in lushly vegetated coastal areas near here. Parts of these were planted by late meteorologist and astronomer Clement Wragge who dressed in Indian- style apparel.

Decades later, Jillian returned to Auckland with Alain. They'd lived in Sydney, in Penang for his work in electrical design and manufacturing, and in Dunedin.

Wragge's former Birkenhead home, where he'd established Waiata Tropical Gardens and his Indian wife had offered fortune-telling sessions, was for sale. The home wasn't suitable for Jillian and Alain but the agent told them about this architecturally designed contemporary home which hadn't yet been put on the market.

Jillian says, "I really liked its view, its openness and the indoor-outdoor flow with a loggia. I liked its entrance, which is quite dramatic and I liked the fact our animals would be safe tucked away down here." She's talking about four cats and two dogs, some of them strays they found in Malaysia.

They have loved this serenity for the last eight years. Their tranquil home is far from the road down a long driveway, separated from the bay by a little-known strip of reserve edged in native bush. Their menagerie is fully fenced in with an automatic gated enclosing off-street parking and a stand-alone double garage.

The two-storey home of cedar and plaster (over a cavity), completed in 2000, has a courtyard off its terracotta-tiled front patio.

Alain says, "It's a very comfortable, spacious home."

Bay views draw visitors in through the entry atrium to the airy kitchen-informal dining room with formal dining alongside.

Jillian enjoys gazing across the bay at mature exotics Wragge planted and nurtured.

"There's a lot of natural beauty here, with the combination of the sea and the vegetation."

Informal and formal dining flow out to a loggia sarked in timber, facing the water through pohutukawa which blaze red each summer. This is Alain's favourite place to sit, listening to tui, wax-eyes, fantails and wood pigeons.

He points out, "You can go down a little path to the water to swim." Jillian adds, "I love looking out across the water to the city at night, with the lights twinkling. It's so peaceful, you can hear the shellfish pop."

A separate lounge has a door and bifold windows out to the front courtyard. Gas central heating supplements the lounge's gas fire, elegant within a marble surround. One of the western wing's three bedrooms can alternately be a study and the other two open to a side deck. They're accompanied by a bathroom, laundry and separate toilet with a fantail leadlight window.

Upstairs are two bedrooms, a small sitting room and the master bedroom, outfitted with bifold windows, plus a walk-in wardrobe. A bathroom and landing is also on this level.

The couple are selling to move to Australia to be closer to Alain's son and daughter-in-law.