KEY POINTS:
3/105 SARSFIELD ST, HERNE BAY
Get out the shoulder pads. This penthouse apartment has that 80s feel to it through and through.
It's one of three built on a corner section overlooking Home Bay, one of Herne Bay's most popular beaches.
Architect Rob Donald, or Dr Donald, as he's know to those interested in the apartment market, has made a bit of a specialty of shorefront developments. One he built in Mt Maunganui last year even included lifeboats hanging off the third floor balconies.
The Sarsfield St complex has similarities to some Dr Donald built in the Mission Bay area in the 1980s.
The complex has a secure gate. Each apartment has a separate entrance and two-car garage.
Walk up the tiled stairway and in the front door, and you find yourself facing a mirror wall, in case you can't remember who you are, or need to adjust your lippy.
If you turn left you're in the living room, with floor-to-ceiling walls looking out across the harbour towards Birkenhead. The view means you don't notice how low the ceiling is. Turn right at the mirror and you're in the kitchen, ample-sized but less ostentatious than some more modern apartment kitchens, and also with the view of water.
The last quarter of the water side frontage is given over to the master bedroom, once you find your way past the walk-in wardrobe and the en suite.
There's another bedroom tucked behind it, on the street side of the house, which also has a water view through a strange metre-wide deck which is protected by a wall from the neighbouring apartment.
The building pushes out to the limits of the planning envelope, so the architect has had to work around slanted walls on the west side of the apartment.
The result is a little cubbyhole of a study beside the lounge, leading into another bedroom.
The 80s was a very clean decade, so there are three bathrooms, two of them with full baths, the third with a spa bath and sauna, which is tucked into the corner where two slanted walls meet.
The streetside deck doesn't hold much appeal, but the water side is large enough to be well used, with a gas barbecue tucked in a sheltered corner.
What the architects plans optimistically call a deck garden along the wall is mostly filled with white stones, although there is a healthy clump of parsley growing in one spot.
Standing on the balcony looking east towards the Harbour Bridge, you realise how much the area has changed over the past two decades, as the substantial Edwardian homes have made way for clifftop Legoland apartments and mansions.
The apartment is sound structurally, but some of the details look a bit tired.
The new owner may also give some thought to the internal layout. Once you get away from the rooms which face the water, the apartment becomes a warren with several spaces which could be reconfigured for better flow. Signifiers of status or luxury, like all the extra bathrooms and dressing rooms, could also be brought up to standard.
The garden slope down to the beach is common space.
VITAL STATISTICS
BEDROOMS: 3
BATHROOMS: 3
GARAGES: 2
SIZE: 335 sq m (approx, including decks and garage).
PRICE INDICATION: CV is $2 million. Auction July 22.
INSPECT: Sun 2.30-3.15 pm.
ON THE WEB: www.kellands.co.nz
SCHOOL ZONES: Ponsonby Primary, Ponsonby Intermediate, Auckland Girls Grammar, Western Springs College.
CONTACT: Pene Milne, Kellands, ph 302 2209 bus, 021 919 940 mob.
FEATURES: Dr Donald apartment on beachfront, due for refurbishment. Short walk from Jervois Rd restaurants. Great location and views. Secure gated entry. Body corporate fees run to about $8000 a year, and rates this year totalled about $5500.
