These days, it is Jim's nephew Les and his wife Anna who own this peninsula view from this sprawling single level-home that is part of the residential area of the Headland Farm Park on a road that has the family name. The site, the aspect and the lifestyle they have immersed themselves in since 1999 is something particularly special.
"There are mountains beyond mountains beyond mountains and, depending on the light, the sun and the tide, it's always changing," Les says. "I've known this view all of my life and I've never got sick of it."
Les' earliest childhood memory of this home is seeing the water tank beneath the kitchen floor as the house was being built.
"Over time various tracts of harbourside land were sold off, but for many decades a good deal of this family's own land remained uncleared. Back then there were cattle and chooks wandering around the house."
The legacy of those who preceded him include the rock wall built by his grandfather with mortar using sand from the beach and Jim's in-ground pool and palm trees. In the 1970s Jim redecorated and, at some point, converted the fourth bedroom into the master en suite.
Les' father, also named Les, only ever lived in the original house on the flat, but this is the home that brings all of the current generations together, including Les and Anna's three adult children, and their five grandchildren.
Much has changed here in more recent decades with the 1982 establishment of the 125ha Headland Park Farm, comprising grazing land and an orchard, protected bush and the 12ha of residential land jointly owned by the 82 freehold title holders.
As such, Les and Anna have board representation and a 1/82nd share in the company that manages the park and its amenities, including its roads. Each year they pay a 1/82nd residential fee calculated to cover any shortfall of the running costs. In Les and Anna's case, their fee has never been more than $1500.
"It has really worked well," he says.
Meanwhile back in their own quarters, Les and Anna's recent renovations have included replacing the original deckside steel-framed joinery with aluminium joinery to bring in more light, updating the bathrooms and repainting the interior.
It has enhanced this site for which Les has his savvy grandfather to thank.
"Having lived here I can tell you that it was the views and the fact that it is sheltered, that were some of the factors, as well as location to power and the like."
Les' work as a mechanical engineer takes him 16km away to Whangarei each day and he's keen for another water view to come home to. Anna, a ceramic artist, is keen to see this home go to another family.
"It's such a positive house and it needs another family with the energy to take it over," she says.
