SCHOOL ZONES:
Three Kings School, Mount Roskill Intermediate, Onehunga High School.
CONTACT:
Keith & Sandy Dowdle, Custom Residential, ph 021 877 905 (Keith) or 021 877 804 (Sandy).
Curvy women have been coming to this address for 25 years, many of them with little idea of the property's full dimensions.
The prominent street-front store opposite Hillsborough Rd sells Caroline Marr's label, The Carpenter's Daughter, offering original womenswear up to size 24.
Observant shoppers may have noted the two-storey bungalow behind the store but, in the tradition of all great "but wait, there's more" offers, that's not the end of the deal.
"People say to me 'oh wow, I didn't realise you have a backyard, too'," says Caroline, "not to mention my workroom."
Her property offers a trio of versatile 1920s buildings, with the private rear brick and concrete quarters she uses as her business' workroom being nearly as large as her house.
"The place next door was the original farmhouse for this area but I don't know what my three buildings would have started life as. The workroom had been a bakery with big ovens in it before I came here. We took out all the ovens and stripped it back to the concrete original floor plan. The bungalow had been the office for the bakery. And I know my shop had previously been a yoga studio, a lead lighting shop for many years and had also been a pottery studio."
Caroline's past is just as interesting. Trimmer now, she got into the rag trade having been a size-24 young mum. She had curvy women constantly asking her where they could buy the self-designed, home-sewn clothes she wore while working as a store detective. The Carpenter's Daughter references her faith and the fact her father was a carpenter and a pastor.
Anyone operating a business from here will have plenty of passers-by viewing their signage. This location's high visibility helped attract Caroline here after she'd started retailing in another location.
She painted the character brick shop's exterior black and upgraded it with a hardwearing concrete floor.
Multiple open-air car-parking spots supplement the internal-access double garage under the bungalow and a carport fronting the separate workroom or studio.
Caroline's ex-husband was a builder who added a lower level to the single-storey weatherboard home so they could raise their two now-adult children amid more space.
Its kitchen-living-dining room on the upper level is free-flowing and sunny. It spills out to a north-facing deck overlooking a rear lawn accented by brick paths and a native-themed garden.
"It's actually really private once you get back here. My kitchen gets the morning sun and then I love my living room or back deck during the day."
There's also a front bedroom with balcony and a bathroom with spa bath on this floor.
The kitchen with breakfast bar, white cabinetry and extra-wide oven has lino which matches the industrial styling of custom-made metal stairs which rise from the living to attic space. Caroline figures you could develop it to fit a bedroom and en suite.
Image 1 of 7: 592 Mt Albert Road, Royal Oak. Photo / Getty Images
Ground level has an entrance hall feeding two good-sized bedrooms, a bathroom-laundry and the home's fourth bedroom, currently configured as a lunch room for staff who work onsite.
The considerable separate rear workroom or studio has an Amish-style simple beauty with its exposed timber beams, concrete floors and appealing brickwork.
Flooded with light -- thanks to multiple opaque roof panels -- it's housed design, sample-making and stock allocation.
"We've even held fashion shows here."
Caroline feels the time is right for new visionary owners to further explore the versatility of the trio of buildings, while she plans to downsize her business.
