SCHOOL ZONES:
Totara North School, Whangaroa College.
CONTACT:
John Greenwood, Bayleys, 021 970 077; David Baguley, 021 831 440.
This hillside villa, almost a century and a half old and just up the from the Whangaroa Harbour, has a majestic presence about it, says owner David Keys.
David and his wife, Alison, bought the home in 1996. They had been living in Auckland but wanted to move to a semi-rural location.
"We started looking around Warkworth and up the coast but even in those days properties were more expensive than we could afford," says David. "We stalled a bit and then we saw the ad for this place."
There was an existing connection to Whangaroa as David's father used to moor his launch in the harbour and the father and son had spent many a weekend sailing out to the Cavalli Islands.
Already knowing this was a beautiful harbour, David went to look at the beautiful house.
"Because of the condition of it, it was a snip buy compared with the values round Warkworth. I rang my wife and said we have to buy this."
The home had been built in the 1870s for Englishman William Paine Brown, who built ships at Lanes' shipyard in the harbour (the home was extended in the 1920s).
David said he was struck by the villa's setting and the proximity to the harbour.
The home sits on a flat area, accessed by a curved driveway, cut into the bush. It is close to Lanes' Timber Mill, once a major industry in the area.
"The Lane homestead is down the bottom of the hill and called Mill House," says David. "So they built this house, or the old part of this house, for the shipbuilder."
David and Alison directed their energy into renovating the home during their early years here.
"It had been tenanted out and knocked around a bit. There was no toilet inside the home, it was out in the garage.
"We put in a modern aerated sewerage system, sorted out the water supply and put in new water tanks, a new driveway and paved area for parking.
"Inside we redecorated every room, repainted and made a few little alterations but nothing huge."
Image 1 of 7: This historic property is close to the harbour and has great views.
They took great care to do the work in keeping with the building's heritage.
"I have a brother-in-law and some friends who are old-fashioned craftsman builders."
Those tradesmen helped the couple with period details for the renovations, building a staircase with turned handrails and posts from kauri, sourced from the mill, that blends in with the high ribbed wooden ceilings and the double-hung sash windows.
They replaced the plastic light and power switches with brass light and power switch surrounds sitting on kauri boxes.
The villa's layout has the living areas -- farmhouse kitchen/dining, lounge, office, laundry and entry porch -- on the ground floor as well as a master bedroom and bathroom.
Stairs at the front and back of the house lead to the second level where there are two bedrooms on either side of the corridor and a bathroom between.
A deck on two sides of the ground floor is accessed from the lounge and dining room. Another deck off David and Alison's upstairs bedroom faces the harbour and Mt Taratara. Every room has a view of the harbour or inland.
The harbour end of the lounge marks the end of the original part of the house.
"The part that has my office, our bedroom upstairs and another porch type area upstairs are the bit that was built in the 1920s," says David.
The couple also subdivided the land, creating a building platform further up the hill beyond the existing home, with driveway access.
"We subdivided because it was vague where the boundaries were. And we thought that maybe in the future we might want to build a house on it as we had room."
Number 23 Okura Bay is the section without a house and measures 6196sq m. Number 29 is the land with the house which is 8272sq m. However, this sale includes both titles.
Kaeo is their nearest town, about 15 minutes away and it has a post shop, a Four Square store, coffee bar and some restaurants.
"If we run out of milk, that's where we go," says David.
"The biggest centre, if you want to go to your bank, is Kerikeri, which is about 40 minutes away."
