Home with a heart in Remuera

100 Clonbern Road, Remuera, Auckland. Photo / Ted Baghurst

100 CLONBERN RD, REMUERA

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SIZE: House 226sq m, land 1153sq m.

PRICE INDICATION: CV $1.53 million.

INSPECT: Sundays and Wednesdays, 1-1.30pm.

ON THE WEB: barfoot.co.nz/463606

SCHOOL ZONES: Auckland Grammar, Epsom Girls' Grammar, Remuera Intermediate, Remuera Primary.

CONTACT: Rick Thevenard, Barfoot & Thompson, ph 638 9158 or 0274 481 888; Libby Jarvis ph 027 485 4151.

AUCTION: November 9, 1pm, Level 4 50 Kitchener St, City, unless sold prior.

FEATURES: Spacious four-bedroom villa, with classic features and generous living spaces on private, elevated site in good school zones.

When Betty Heron moved into this villa with her parents and three brothers during the 1930s, the family's plan was to live there for six months while their father built a new home in Bell Rd on Remuera's northern slopes.

Instead, Betty ended up living at 100 Clonbern Rd for 80 years, until she died recently just a few weeks before her 90th birthday.

Two of Betty's nieces, Vicki and Maria, talk proudly about how their grandmother (Betty's mother) Florence coped, raising four children alone in the house during the Depression after her husband George died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 40.

George Heron was a respected builder and philanthropist who owned his own joinery factory, had built several grand Auckland homes and had given land to St Aidan's Church and the Carlton Bowling Club before his untimely death.

"The house was always a real hub and people gravitated to it. The energy and friendship our grandmother bestowed on people always made them feel at home here," says Maria. "Friends of her children would make a point of dropping in to visit her because she was so welcoming."

It may have seemed modest when compared with the Herons' planned family home, but the Clonbern Rd house, which was built in 1906, was a substantial, double-bay villa with classical and elegant proportions.

Most of the home's original features are intact and it has been fastidiously maintained for several decades by Bill Heron, Vicki and Maria's uncle who lived there with his sister Betty for some time.

The house sits on an elevated 1153sq m site at the bottom end of Clonbern Rd, at a slight angle from the street, with outlooks to mature trees on its eastern and southern sides.

The front stairs lead to a large foyer with a pressed steel ceiling and a small reception room to one side. All four large bedrooms, including the master with a bay window, open off one side of the hallway and face west to make the most of afternoon sun.

A large formal living room and adjoining dining room open off the other side of the hall with original, panelled glass bifold doors dividing them.

Their windows look out to a veranda that runs along the eastern side of the house and faces towards Ellerslie. Other original features in these two rooms include two open fireplaces, leadlights in a bay window in the dining room and elegant light fittings.

At the end of the hallway, on the northern side of the house, is a spacious farmhouse kitchen including tongue-and-groove kauri walls and ample cupboard space.

The kitchen and a light-filled sunroom adjoining it look over a large flat garden on two levels.

The top level has a single garage, with a liftable floor for wood storage to one side of it and, on the other, a spacious workshop with its own veranda. On the lower level are large vegetable beds which kept the family largely self-sufficient.

Two bathrooms with separate toilets are on the main level of the house.

Maria and Vicki both have wonderful memories of large dinners and reunions at the house and hope its new owners will make the most of this cherished family home.