Launch pad - Northcote

This bach-style home with an industrial edge has proximity to the city, but you can still launch a dinghy off the property.

3 Onewa Road, Northcote.

On a fine morning, when the tide's in, Dean and Annie Oxborough can launch a dinghy from the bottom of their section. A short row through the mangroves, under a motorway bridge and they're in the Waitemata Harbour.

Their property isn't at the far reaches of the harbour, but just on the other side of the Harbour Bridge. The only sign on the northern side of Onewa Road that there's a 1047sq m property here is a parking space and shed on the road frontage.

Walk down a winding pathway through ponga, palms and yukkas and you come to a sundrenched home on the water's edge.

There used to be a bach here when Dean and Annie discovered the property 12 years ago.
``It was pretty rough, and there was a huge beehive in one wall,'' recalls Dean. ``After we pulled down the bach the bees kept coming back looking for home.''

The couple weren't permitted to build anything bigger than the bach's original footprint, so came up with a two-level design that increases its space with wrap-around decks top and bottom.

The materials used to build it create a bachy feel with a groovy industrial edge - whitewashed wooden floors, tongue-in-groove ceilings and wooden bifold doors are linked by exposed steel beams.

The staircase is a metal Dexion model normally found in factories or warehouses - Dean and Annie found it rusting in a demo yard and had it stripped, galvanised and powder-coated. The cladding is a mixture of solid plaster and Zincalume.

The lower level contains the kitchen, dining and living area, which is warmed by a big open fire. From here you look across the mangroves to Onepoto Domain and houses elevated in the distance.

``We're actually on the edge of a crater here,'' says Dean. ``It's called Tuff crater. Those houses across the way are on the other edge.

There's lots of walks through a kind of green belt that encircles it. When the fog comes in it sits on top of the water, with the trees around the crater's edge emerging from the top - it looks like something out of Lord of the Rings.''

The upstairs level captures even more of this view. A study, which used to be a nursery for their seven-year-old son Elliot, faces north and opens on to its own balcony. The two bedrooms step down onto a deck that runs the length of the east side.

Last year Dean, who has a landscaping business, ``knocked up'' a sleepout for 15-year-old Jordan. At the end of a boardwalk through the garden, it has the feel of a boatshed with bifold doors that open to the trees near the water. Dean used the kauri floorboards from the original bach, and points to a trapdoor.

``When I used to build huts with my brother when we were young we always had a secret hatch, so I made one in here for Jordan.''
The walk to and from the sleepout takes you past a glorious kauri that might be about 80 years old.

``We get lots of tui in it, and there's lots of other bird life around the section - pukeko, ducks, pheasants, kingfishers.''

Because the house is tucked down from busy Onewa Road, you can hardly hear the traffic. And the prevailing southwest winds blow straight over the top of the hill behind it.

The location means getting to the city, Ponsonby or Takapuna beach is a breeze, while the Bridgeway cinema and the boutique shops surrounding it are just down the road.

Dean and Annie know this property will be hard to beat, but as their boys get older they feel they've outgrown it. They're looking for a bigger house, and Dean would like a big garage.

If they can find all that in a spot where you can also launch a boat from the bottom of the garden, they might not miss this place quite so much.

VITAL STATISTICS

BEDROOMS: 3

BATHROOMS: 2

GARAGES: 0

SIZE: Land 1047 sq m, house 110sq m.

PRICE INDICATION: Interest expected above $700,000. Auction August 16.

INSPECT: Sunday 10.45-11.45am.

ON THE WEB: www.open2view.com #132966

CONTACT: Tricia Lafferty, Meo Realty, ph 021 611 205.

FEATURES: Two-level house on the water's edge with views, a paddle away from the Waitemata Harbour. Open fire in lounge. Nursery/study upstairs. Sleepout in garden.