Sound of music in Remuera

75a Waiatarua Rd, Remuera. Photo / Geoff Dale

75A WAIATARUA RD REMUERA

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SIZE: Land share 3260sq m, house 406sq m.

PRICE INDICATION: CV $1.53 million. Auction March 19.

INSPECT: Sunday 12-12.30pm.

ON THE WEB: barfoot.co.nz/449987

SCHOOL ZONES: Meadowbank School, Remuera Intermediate, Selwyn College.

CONTACT: Steve Koerber, Barfoot & Thompson Remuera, ph 215 4398 or 021 864 166.

FEATURES: Sensational renovated and extended 1940s bungalow in a quiet cul-de-sac on Remuera's northern slopes. Features landscaped grounds with swimming pool, playhouse and multiple indoor and outdoor entertaining areas. Rumpus, wine cellar and storeroom, kitchen with gas-fired Rayburn oven, home theatre, separate dining area.

Spending 20 years in the same house while raising four children is proof that Chris Hart succeeded in his mission to create an adaptable family home. The position of the 170sq m, 1940s single-storey stucco house - off a cul-de-sac, down a right-of-way and overlooking Orakei Creek - was perfect, but Chris knew he not only needed a bigger home, but one that could cope with his children's changing demands.

In 1992 work began on the basement, but problems with the foundations caused cost overruns, which halted the project for some years. However, with the help of his partner, architect Rosalie Stanley, who arrived on the scene after the project had started, a three-storey home emerged that was more than double the size of the original, with multiple entertaining spaces indoors and out. "We had a clear vision: we wanted a home that would grow with the kids," says Chris. "We've grown up as a family though the whole cycle, and this house has comfortably fitted two adults and four teenagers - and that's not easy to do."

Spreading the family over three levels certainly helps, with the main living areas on the mid-level, the point at which you enter the home. Here, there is a generous open-plan living, dining and kitchen area that opens into an adjoining lounge that can be curtained off. Out front there is a deck and a flat lawn that Chris had created - by the excavation team working on the basement - so that his children had somewhere to ride their bikes. Above this is a playground that has been built in and around the mature trees. There is also a vege garden and fruit trees that help to supply the kitchen.

A Rayburn gas cooker in the living area provides hot water and heat via wall-mounted radiators, while a woodburner with a wet back on the other side of the living area also helps to cut hot-water bills. A fan pumps heat from the top of the house to the basement "box room", which has doors either end so heat can be directed where it's needed. And as you'd expect from the founder of music emporium Real Groovy, Chris has the house wired for sound.

Also on the main level is a bathroom with a laundry next door. "We set it up like this so we could shovel the kids' clothes straight into the laundry when they were having a bath," says Chris. At the rear of the house a separate dining room, which has its own pergola-sheltered deck, overlooks the swimming pool in the backyard.

Downstairs, next to the box room, is a wine cellar - kept at a cool, even temperature because it backs on to a retaining wall. Both bedrooms on this level and the lounge that sits between them open out to the L-shaped swimming pool, which has a shaded pergola at one end. Privacy is provided by a backdrop of mature trees and palms.

On the top floor, the master bedroom - with walk-in wardrobe and en suite - has a wide window seat overlooking the pool and the neighbourhood. Chris says the next-door bedroom, which has been set up as an office, would work equally as well as a nursery by replacing the desk, which sits in an alcove, with a cot.

Rounding out the top floor is a TV room with a void at the rear so air can circulate from the living area below. Skylights, mostly in pairs, are a strong feature throughout the home, especially upstairs.

Now that they are nearly empty-nesters, the couple is planning a move to Devonport where Rosalie works.