Character study in Ponsonby

84 Brown Street, Ponsonby. Photo / Getty Images

84 BROWN ST, PONSONBY

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SIZE: Land 366sq m, house size 160sq m.

PRICE INDICATION: $1 million- plus. Auction February 16.

INSPECT: Sunday 2pm-3pm.

ON THE WEB: www.raywhite.co.nz/ PON20831

SCHOOL ZONES: Richmond Road Primary School, Ponsonby Intermediate, Auckland Girls' Grammar, Western Springs College.

CONTACT: Tricia Lafferty, Ray White Ponsonby, ph 021 611 205 or 376 2186.

FEATURES: Stylishly renovated three-bedroom, two-bathroom cottage, with off-street parking, blends old and new. Living areas for entertaining open to a manicured sunny garden and white gravel courtyard.

In Ponsonby - as anyone who has partied hard on the strip has learned to their chagrin - looks can sometimes be deceiving. Gorgeous exteriors can reveal, on closer inspection,

ho-hum personalities but sometimes you strike gold: what at first glance looks simple and sweet on the outside can turn out to be luscious and fabulous and quite unexpected on the inside. It's the same with real estate.

Victoria Bamford laughs that she is no interior designer, but she is being modest. Her day job - as a project manager for customer experience for an award-winning global brand that is winning all sorts of awards - means she is used to bringing in jobs on time and on budget, and to give visitors a feeling they have been treated to something special. The house that she and international yachtsman-turned-businessman Richard Searle have created on the Richmond Rd end of Brown St certainly delivers special in bucketloads. There are clues from the street: the modest white square-fronted cottage is crisply trimmed with pickets and a tailored front garden; the number is in frosted glass on the old front door; and the driveway features smart white gravel.

But it is not until you step through the front door that you realise that the house is twice the size it seems: the traditional cottage layout of a central corridor with two rooms on either side gives way at the back to an enormous "great room" comprising kitchen, dining and living spaces. This in turn opens to a gravelled courtyard and terraced garden, complete with a grand old plane tree. "That lawn was our home for two months while the back of the house was demolished and rebuilt in 2007," explains Victoria. "We lived in a tent with three dogs and it rained for 20 days non-stop. We ran away once to a hotel so we could have a bath and sleep in a real bed."

Victoria's brief to architect Greg Jones of Jones Architects was for "classical elegance". The couple did not want a modern glass box grafted on to the historic building (dating before the 1880s as the very wide floor boards in the front two bedrooms show).

Greg had worked on projects such as the Ponsonby Post Office and Mantells in Mount Eden so he knew how to rearrange the front rooms to create three bedrooms and two good bathrooms (one is an en suite), and give character to the great room at the back. With its pitched ceiling and enough traditional weatherboard detailing on the porch columns, it evokes another era. Old meets new with polished concrete floors, granite benches, a generous bar area (with wine fridge) and - a luxury in old cottages - a laundry/mudroom/back porch.

Victoria and Richard loved the design process, relishing the challenge of sourcing every tap and handle before their favourite builder, Richard Shrubshell, even broke ground.

Victoria's clever eye for detail has combined industrial vintage lighting fixtures with glorious crystal chandeliers, a modern fireplace in the sitting room with old-fashioned grates, and registers in two of the three bedrooms. Vanities in the marble bathrooms were converted from Chinese cabinets (one has a marble bowl for a sink); bevelled mirrors sourced from furniture stores; and floor-length curtains created from sweeps of silky washes. Victoria has mixed stained floorboards, sisal and carpeting with fresh white paint (the house had been a garish combination of pastels), extending the white colour scheme to the garden.

The garden is unexpectedly large for this corner of Ponsonby. Living room walls slide back - the couple replaced the outside dining table with upholstered seating for a second living room instead - and the upper lawn sports clipped hedges and white roses.

Victoria now has her eye on renovating an even bigger project - a classic farmhouse in her home territory of the Wairarapa - so the couple will be leaving this Ponsonby lady to charm and entice the next set of owners, just as she has done for more than a century.