The Macdonalds describe 20 Orakei Rd as a house of laughter and light. Penny Macdonald recalls, "It was always full of people, food and music", and her children are the family's fourth generation to explore the nooks and crannies of the elegant four-storey house.
Penny's late father Graeme lived there since the 1940s when his parents Eric and Winifred bought the property. After he returned from England in the 1960s, Graeme and wife Joan built a house in the garden then swapped with his parents in the 1970s, raising their own family in the spacious house.
Remuera old-timers remember decades of parties in the house and garden. Grandfather Eric entertained children from his sister's kindergarten nearby, with the piano hauled into the garden for performances. Graeme often hosted parties for his neurosurgery ward staff, and son Jonathan continues the tradition with his pharmacy team. The house featured in the 1980s TV series Gloss, where appalling fashion sense (and behaviour) did not resemble real life.
Penny, Jonathan and sister Rachel knew adjacent Waiata Reserve nearly as well as the property's substantial park-like grounds. The old stables and brick well are still there from the original farm, while the round lawn was completed in the 1940s from the same stones as Mt Eden prison. "When we were kids, Mum always made extra dinner and had spare beds made up for the people that gravitated here," says Penny.
