Up the native garden path

212A Hillsborough Rd, Hillsborough. Photo / Michelle Hyslop

212A HILLSBOROUGH RD HILLSBOROUGH

6

3

3*

SIZE: Land 2924sq m, house 288sq m

PRICE INDICATION: Interest is expected above CV $1.25 million

INSPECT: Open home Sat/Sun 1pm-1.45pm or view by appointment. Auction March 26

ON THE WEB: http://www.bayleys.co.nz/1750152

SCHOOL ZONES: Hillsborough Primary, Waikowhai Intermediate, Onehunga High

CONTACT: Wei Elder, Bayleys Real Estate, ph 021 0244 0885 or (09) 375 8422

FEATURES: *plus off-street parking for three.

It's 8am, the coffee is hot and Adrienne Priday and Iain Smith are sitting in their sunroom, looking out across their pool, to the waters of Taylors Bay and Mangere Mountain. They can hear Adrienne's chooks - Betsy, Clara and Arabella - clucking down in their pen beyond the deck.

Then it's off to work: for Adrienne, a short drive to Middlemore Hospital, where she works as a midwife, and for Iain, a short walk downstairs to the home office of his architectural design practice.

This stuff of lifestyle dreams in the heart of suburban Auckland is packaged in a 1970s home which has proven its worth for everyone - including the birds that fly over Adrienne's native garden to their own nests in the bush that embraces the home.

Adrienne discovered this home almost eight years ago. "I love birds but I needed to be 20 minutes from Middlemore, and this is only 15 minutes to the city for Iain," she explains.

With two previous renovations and a new home build to their credit, they found themselves moving into the ideal home built in what Iain refers to as "the building blocks" style of the Seventies, with well-defined formal and casual living areas all coming off the kitchen, "as they should".

Here, the sunroom opens into the formal dining room with a formal lounge up two steps in the snug-style area by the fireplace. They've swapped them around but they like this set-up the best. "One of the best aspects of this entire house is that there are lots of opportunities for various living spaces," says Adrienne. "There's a sense of intimacy and yet these are not small rooms."

Along the hall, behind double glass doors, a casual wing with an everyday dining area beside the Colleen Holder-designed kitchen, opens into the adjacent family room. Original bleached pine tongue and groove ceilings provide the unifying link between the kitchen and the family room. In this companionable living area, Iain replaced the original glass conservatory roof with three fixed, double-glazed tinted windows to better control incoming light and heat. That alteration, plus a few others, elevated the home to multi-layer, extended family living at its best.

Image 1 of 7: 212A Hillsborough Rd, Hillsborough. Photo / Michelle Hyslop

"Open-plan living can be big and noisy and it rarely works well," Iain explains. "These rooms operate in series, as a series of rooms separate but connected. There is conversation in here and conversation going on in there without each interfering with the other."

Adrienne adds: "There's something called functionality and here everyone has their sense of belonging within the home, and a sense of independence and privacy, too."

On Iain and Adrienne's own horizon is a shift into townhouse-style home and Adrienne knows that she may well be handing over her three chickens as much-loved chattels of this home.