This is a home with staying power and a documented past to prove it. In 1963, the NZ Woman's Weekly featured the story of its restoration, along with other central Auckland period homes, under the heading "Gay Old Ladies" -- and this matron had already notched up 100 years of living by that stage.
Her council title goes back to the 1860s, say Margo and Richard Jamieson, her latest owners, who moved here two years ago.
Since then, the much larger original acreage has been chipped away as the elegant homes of St Stephens Ave have taken shape among the trees. Out front, a landmark pohutukawa tree that defines this 40m street frontage.
This home's earliest documented owner was Sir Alfred Bankart (1870-1933) who was the former chairman of NZ Insurance, NZ Newspapers and the Memorial Museum committee, and the secretary to Auckland's founding father, Sir John Logan Campbell.
Over subsequent decades, this home has been adored, neglected, turned into flats, boarded up, threatened with demolition to make way for townhouses, salvaged and brought back to life.
In Signature magazine (date unknown), interior design doyenne Nanette Cameron told how noted Auckland design aficionados Terry Kelleher and Harley Housen peeled back layers of neglect to discover ceilings that defined the original layout while working on their own glamorous restoration.
In the 1980s/90s, Brian Hall and Isabel Harris, of the Thornton Hall fashion label, took over guardianship before it transferred to another family for a decade more in the early 2000s.
Two years ago, Margo and Richard Jamieson, an investment manager, brought Maxwell, now aged 6, and Ava, 3, to live here -- a move enhanced by the sentimental attachment to this neighbourhood where Richard's father once lived.
Image 1 of 6: Every detail of this landmark property hints at Auckland city's early days.
For this family, the house was ideal just as it was, with its living areas opening to the front lawn but still close to the rear kitchen, two guest bedrooms downstairs and their private bedrooms upstairs, embraced by sloping ceilings and dormer windows.
"It's a house that is very pretty facially," says Margo.
"I fell in love with it as soon as we walked through the gate."
She loves the big spaces, the French doors, the deep elegant cornices around the top of the walls in the front rooms and the history behind its pit-sawn weatherboards walls.
Keen to settle in for the long-term, Margo invited their neighbours for a drinks party just after they moved in.
The Prime Minister and his wife had a prior engagement but it was another neighbour among their guests who brought the Nanette Cameron article on the house and its history.
Margo and Richard had recently renovated their plantation-style holiday home in Hawaii, and they were keen to further refurbish this house.
They have upgraded the heating and insulation but the rest of the house has remained as it was. The timber kitchen, with its marble bench, the lounge with its soft mother-of-pearl wallpaper and the five fireplaces, are all unchanged.
Architect Christian Anderson's plans included better flow between the kitchen and the casual living areas and four-car basement garaging beneath the existing guest suite, beside the orangery-style conservatory that houses the disused in-ground pool.
For the time being, Margo's new chandeliers will be staying in their boxes as she packs to return to Sydney to be nearer her father, who had a bout of ill-health last year.
