KEY POINTS:
31 MT ST JOHN AVENUE,
EPSOM.
In the summer of 1973, a colonial farmhouse at number 31 Owens Road in Epsom embarked on the journey of a lifetime, all the way down Manukau Road to a new plot at another number 31, on the slopes of Mt St John.
The cottage, built in the late 1850s, had caught the eye of Dr Lindsay Brown and his wife Mary. They bought it for relocation and to rebuild it as part of a "new" larger house on subdivided land behind the original Brown family home, in which their two children had grown up.
This became a visionary labour of love for the esteemed doctor, who was the first pathologist at Cornwall Hospital (later National Women's Hospital), and whose noteworthy professional and academic achievements included the establishment of a forerunner to the modern medical laboratory service and its mobile laboratory diagnostic service.
Historical research compiled by the Brown family notes that this new house was inspired by the Treaty House at Waitangi. The original house was partly disassembled at its new location and original weatherboards, window frames and interior doors reused.
The ground floor of the house and its new verandah is true to the original lines of the square-front cottage with its rough-sawn timber weatherboards, sash windows and recycled French doors off the lounge.
Seventeen solid timber pillars crafted to match original solid Totara pillars support the terracotta-paved, wrap-around verandah on every face, except the south side of the house that backs onto Mt St John Domain. Original corrugated iron roofing has been replaced with demolition slate tiles from the former Medical Students Hostel in Grafton Road.
Inside, the house steps up and down throughout the different rooms that open off the side entrance to a formal lobby, a formal dining room to the left, Dr Brown's corner office and the front lounge further off to the right.
Off this lounge double doors with green glass lead into a formal sitting room. Stairs and a turned balustrade lead up to the kitchen which, like the bathrooms, has a 1970s flavour.
Deep red mahogany-like block parquet flooring defines the entrance, dining room, kitchen and the office.
Elsewhere there is blue floral carpet up the main stairs and green carpet in the living areas.
The white Carrara marble fireplace in the lounge was among the many features picked up by Dr Brown from his weekend excursions to the city's demolition yards.
The Browns moved into this house in 1975 and Dr Brown took great delight in designing the gardens, defined by volcanic scoria retaining walls at the front and two concrete block retaining walls to the rear.
Downstairs, in one of the three basement rooms off the carports, Dr Brown set up a well-equipped workshop where he lovingly restored many pieces of fine furniture for his home.
This is a house with a fairytale feeling about its quaint, rambling layout and picturesque charm.
Beyond the front door, there's a path of "crazy paving" that was this couple's personal connection to the adjacent public walkway up to Mt St John.
This home comes to the market as a deceased estate following the death of Mary Brown earlier this year. Dr Brown died in 1987 at the age of 69.
