Sweet Mt Albert bungalow full of happy memories

840 New North Rd, Mt Albert, Auckland. Photo / Getty Images.

840 NEW NORTH RD, MT ALBERT

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SIZE: Land 2365sq m (approx), house 200sq m.(approx)

PRICE INDICATION: Interest expected above July 2011 CV of $1.4 million. Auction on site on April 1 at 3.30pm (unless sold prior).

INSPECT: Sat/Sun 2.30-3.30pm, Thurs 6-6.30pm.

ON THE WEB: rwmtalbert.co.nz/MAB20102

SCHOOL ZONES: Gladstone School, Kowhai Intermediate, Mt Albert Grammar.

CONTACT: Tracy Johnson and Rex Baddeley, Ray White Mt Albert, ph 021 2647 014 (Tracy) or 027 4869 488 (Rex).

FEATURES: Unspoilt 1926 bungalow with separate workshop. One-room cottage retreat and subdivision potential.

The Jarvis family homestead once boasted a massive garden bed of poinsettias so vividly red that a pilot told the family he used it as a navigational marker when airborne. That floral display may be history, but the quaint tales about the family's 70-year ownership of the property still flourish.

Jack and Kathleen Jarvis owned the large property and now the couple have both passed away it's being sold by their four adult children, John, David and Raymond Jarvis and sister Rosemary Griffiths (nee Jarvis). John and Rosemary say the rare type of tea plant still growing in the front garden was grown from seed by the property's original owner, who ran a Ceylonese tea packaging business on site. Scientists visited to study the plant but couldn't establish it properly elsewhere because of New Zealand's climate. Suitably impressed, the kids were about 7-years-old when they tried to boil its leaves up for a cuppa. "It tasted awful," Rosemary says. "It's a wonder we didn't poison ourselves!"

When the family bought the property from its original owner in 1942 it was Jack's mother Daisy and her daughter-in-law Kathleen who chose it, as Jack was stationed up north with the army guarding against Japanese invasion.

Another big attraction was the property's large timber-floored workroom incorporating two garages, which has three-phase power and is still suitable for a business. The family ran their picture moulding business from it with Nana Daisy happily doing finishing work such as gilding until she was 94. The family also bred dachshunds and supplemented their income by selling cut poinsettias to florists.

The property is down a long driveway, next to Ferndale House, which was known as the Garlick Homestead when it hosted the teenage Jarvis children at dances (before being donated to the local council in the 1940s). Its 2365sq m of gently sloping land suggests subdivision potential of three lots subject to council consent, given its zoning's 600sq m minimum lot size.

A highlight of the big front lawn is a massive date palm, along with fishponds waiting to be restocked. A separate single garage is behind the workshop. The 1926 wooden bungalow has basement storage, with central concrete front steps up to its covered front porch. Curved leadlight windows flank either side of the front door, which opens into a generous entrance foyer. Along the front are four bedrooms, including the master with windowseat and a bedroom which used to be a sunroom, with a study nearby. The roomy formal dining room has built-in sideboard cabinet for china and a character brick fireplace. The lounge's fireplace surround has original striking blue tiles, with plaster flowers adorning the big inverted ceiling rose above. The kitchen is near original except for new cabinetry, and the home's completed by a family bathroom, toilet and separate laundry.

Not far from the back door is a one-room cottage - a picturesque retreat with its own fireplace set into native timber walls. Rosemary sometimes used it as her library while her brothers hurled themselves around the big grounds, avoiding the former flower beds as they played cowboys and Indians.