ON OFFER:
Eleven freehold 1-bed, 1-bath with study; and two-bed apartments. All have one/two carparks and a walk-in storage unit. Eight have decks. Shared swimming pool and tennis court. Possession date is within weeks
PRICE INDICATION:
$600,000 to $1.05 million.
INSPECT:
Display suites open Tues noon-1pm; Thurs 4.30-5.30pm, and Sat 11am-noon.
SCHOOL ZONES:
Freemans Bay Primary, Ponsonby Intermediate, Western Springs College, Auckland Girls
CONTACT:
Grant Dickson, Ray White, 021 726 812.
BODY CORPORATE:
$2800 to $4200 a year.
Family pets don't generally get a look in when it comes to the apartment market, but when Tracy and Mike Mahoney moved from their rural lifestyle block into a new apartment in Wellington they made sure their 12-year-old Labrador Bolly was able to go with them too.
Then again they were in a position to make that happen. It was their company Tawera Group that was behind that development in 2007 and so they got to write the body corporate rules.
Group CEO David Mahoney says: "Mum was not going to move in unless the dog came too, until pets were part of the body corporate rules and we've stuck with that rule in every development since then.
"Bringing a pet in still needs approval from the body corporate but we're seen as a pet-friendly building whereas there are other apartment developments that have a ban on pets altogether."
The Hopetoun Residences is the fourth development by this family business in which David works alongside his sisters Josephine and Annabel as the interior designer and marketing manager respectively, and his brother-in-law as the chief financial officer.
The company's conversion of this early 1980s Baycorp building began in late 2013 when it bought the property and began showing prospective buyers through the first three of its nine levels that had been vacated by its commercial tenants.
The building's soaring solid concrete hexagonal form was already an established landmark on the K Rd ridgeline. Now, with the additional of square and angular shaped decks on all sides, the building has taken on a something of a star-shaped form orientated towards the city and harbour to the north.
Reconfigured by architect Andrew Smith of Paul Brown Architects, the building comprises 85 apartments over 12 levels, including the ground floor and three levels in the podium and eight more levels in the tower above.
Image 1 of 9: Animal-loving developers mean an open-minded attitude toward family pets. Photos / Fiona Goodall, Getty
All up, the new floor plan has added three more levels to the original building incorporating previously unoccupied space at the top that accommodated the services. They achieved it by adding little more than 1m to the original height.
These new levels have been painted a stand-out black in contrast to the white of the existing exterior and its new glass balconies. A landscaped entrance garden and vertical cedar screen ties it in with the heritage elements in the neighbourhood.
Far and wide, the views looking north from here take in the heritage buildings and grounds of Auckland Girls' Grammar and Western Park in the foreground. From the west the views unfold from the Waitakere Ranges beyond Eden Park to the city fringe, the Harbour Bridge and the North Shore and out past the Sky Tower to include Waiheke Island round to Browns Island. Elsewhere in the complex the views take in wider urban Auckland.
"Not one apartment in the whole complex doesn't have a sea view and only three don't have decks," says David. "Once the decks went in clients could see for themselves how far the views extended. Before then we could only tell them, standing right at the window, that the views go from west, for instance, even if we couldn't actually see that far at the time."
Inside these apartments the decor discreetly acknowledges the original building in the hexagonal shape of the apartment door numbers and the lights in the entrance, which has marble-look tiles.
Beyond the basalt-tiled decks, the apartments include carpeted living areas, tiled marble-look bathrooms, kitchens with engineered stone benches, low-lustre painted glass splashbacks, wide-plank American oak laminated flooring and white cabinetry.
Most apartments have room enough for separate laundries.
Their evolution has been about balancing the modern aesthetic with practical lifestyle appeal, says David.
