Garden steals scene on TV
Kiwi actors on set of whodunit crime series admired beauty of reinvented layout, writes Sandra Goodwin
Betty and Kerry Cordes have lavished love on their Chatswood home and beautifully landscaped garden, one of the locations for the Kiwi television crime drama, The Blue Rose.
The couple’s lounge was the setting for the attempted murder of one of the characters in the series, which starred Antonia Prebble and Siobhan Marshall and aired in 2013.
Eighty-two-year-old dressmaker Betty says: “Before this we lived on a Glenfield property with a three-storey house and very big grounds, where Kerry had established beautiful gardens.
“But we wanted to downsize after he had a heart problem.”
They bought here in 2007, appreciating its brick and weatherside construction, predominantly single-level layout and the serene cul-de-sac position looking out at kauri and other natives in the Chatswood Reserve.
“I know this house was built in the 1980s but I think it’s got a very English feeling to it with the front wall and the ivy and the shutters — that was something I liked,” says Betty.
Plus it had enough space to accommodate both Betty’s sewing and Kerry’s wine-making hobbies.
Gardening guru Kerry reinvented the grounds by bringing with them 700 plants he’d potted at their previous property.
Kerry, who was 74 when they moved, says: “I barrowed out 2000 wheelbarrows of clay and brought in a lot of good soil to establish the gardens.”
He was delighted to hear during filming of The
Blue Rose that its actors and film crew had talked about how lovely the front garden was.
It includes an outdoor entertaining area and lawn that Kerry maintains meticulously.
The property has an internal-access double garage and a vine-covered front wall, to which they added a wrought iron pedestrian entry gate.
Off the entry hallway is the front lounge, where Kerry likes to listen to classical music by the fireplace with a glass of his own wine in hand.
“If we go to the Auckland Town Hall, to the Auckland Philarmonia Orchestra or the NZSO [NZ Symphony Orchestra], it’s 15 minutes’ drive from here,” he says.
The lounge is next to a dining room and behind a remodelled kitchen with its own seating area.
Its parquet floors continue into the large sunroom where wide-opening banks of windows overlooking the reserve blur the indoor-outdoor boundary in summertime.
Along a corridor is the separate laundry, separate toilet, family bathroom and four bedrooms, one of which Betty has used as her sewing room.
Their master bedroom with walk-in-wardrobe and en suite looks out on to a blossoming tree that tu¯i flock to.
The rear of the home opens out to a deck with a lovely view of the bush reserve and back garden, which includes paths, waterfall, goldfish pond, and gazebo.
When the couple’s grandchildren were younger they liked going for walks around the reserve, to which there’s entry next door.
Downstairs is another sizeable space with its own entry, which could make a nice office, craft room or man cave.
It’s where Kerry has blended his own wine, for which he’s won amateur wine awards.
The couple, who love travelling, have made many improvements here, including re-carpeting, re-painting the interior, putting in new window coverings, a new kitchen, and having the tile roof restored.
They also replaced aluminium doors leading into the sunroom with elegant English casement doors.
Kerry is already planning his container garden for the deck of the apartment they’re having built for them in Bert Sutcliffe Retirement Village.