Tuakau: Walls that talk

A couple felt this historic villa spoke to them, and listened to its need for renovation.

191A George St, Tuakau.

Irish-born Maryann Dinneen-Frumau knew she was meant to live in this rural Tuakau villa when she first spotted it for sale two years ago.

Her husband John Frumau wasn't so sure. His reaction to her enthusiasm was along the lines of, ``In your dreams'', she recalls.

Not to be thwarted, Maryann won John over to the 1860s house that pre-dates Tuakau township, and stood as the first Post Office and shop serving the rural area.

"A house has to talk to me,'' says Maryann. ``It has to tell me something and this one had a beautiful feeling about it. I stood outside the front and imagined walking through the gateway and how I'd feel, and now that's exactly how I feel."

Maryann and John let the house go on talking to them, and they did what it told them needed doing to finish off the previous owners' renovations. They added a new kitchen and repainted the exterior in heritage tones of cream, with burgundy window trim to suit the near-new red roof.

John built the picket fence across the front boundary and the gates just the way Maryann likes them. And along the way she discovered many more deeply personal connections with the house, including its links with migrants from Northern Ireland. Many local streets are named after these settlers, who arrived on the ship the Ganges in the 1860s. Maryann was born in the Republic of Ireland.

"I discovered all this after we'd bought the house. Even when I saw a black and white photocopied picture of the house in the old days with the people standing on the verandah, I still felt a connection. Finding out all the bits of information has been like putting a jigsaw puzzle together."

Their house is located about 2km from Tuakau township. Just half a kilometre down the road the local cemetery turned up many clues to the area's history.

As for the property itself, the lines of the house are original and it's not difficult to make out the original layout from the different forms of the ceilings.

Each of the generous double bedrooms has been lined with plain and patterned wallpapers and borders, in keeping with the colonial treatment of homes with a high villa stud. The bathroom is a beauty, with its fulsome lace Austrian blind, his and hers pedestal basins and aged timber framed mirrors.

The outdated kitchen told the couple it needed their attention and they responded by gutting the space, resurfacing the original kauri floors and finished it off with cabinetry and bench tops in soft tones that suit the house beneath its board-and-batten ceiling.

Maryann and John then listened to the garden, which was bare ground beneath one towering Phoenix Palm and a century-old weeping elm tree.

"The tree looks like something out of Lord of the Rings," Maryann declares. "It looks quite eerie when it has no leaves on it, and I think it looks at us and thinks we're going to chop it down. We're not, but it could do with a bit of a haircut."

The couple's great pleasure in this home has been gained through landscaping its grounds. The lawn around the house lets John know that its needs a haircut and he responds by firing up the petrol lawnmower.

"Oh, that's a vintage thing as well," chuckles Maryann. Now they're looking at buying an even larger lifestyle block, and are searching with their ears as well as their eyes.

BEDROOMS: 3

BATHROOMS: 2

GARAGES: *

*No garage but lots of off-street parking.

SIZE: Land 7440sq m, house 140sq m.

PRICE: $595,000.

INSPECT: Sunday 11am-12pm.

ON THE WEB: www.harcourts.co.nz/PW60503

CONTACT: Carola Hehewerth, Harcourts Pukekohe, ph 09 238 4244 bus, 09 236 0946 a/h, 0275 973 558.

FEATURES: Beautifully restored 1860s villa with a separate lounge with fireplace. Flat to sloping land contour, fully fenced with rural views. Three paddocks with a loading race, farm shed and storage.