Key sells mansion for $23.5m
Sir John Key has sold his Auckland mansion for $23.5 million, in what was New Zealand’s second most expensive house sale of 2017.
Lianzhong Chen bought the 1752 square metre property at 103 St Stephens Ave in Parnell on February 28, 2017 but a long settlement period meant the title officially changed hands just last week.
The property’s most recent CV of $16m was issued by Auckland Council in July 2017, after it was bought by Chen. Annual rates for the property are more than $32,000.
A CoreLogic spokesman confirmed the house sale was New Zealand’s second most expensive of 2017. The most expensive sale that year was 19 O’Neills Ave, Takapuna, which sold for $28.9m.
Between 2014 and 2017 the mansion’s CV increased nearly 50 per cent thanks to Auckland house prices soaring under a National government led by Key.
The sale of Key’s home was reported in September 2017 however, up until last week it was still owned by the lawyers who act as trustees of the Key family trust.
Records show Chen owns another property on nearby Remuera Rd, with a CV of $4.2m.
In the late 1990s/early 2000s Key, who was New Zealand prime minister from 2008 to 2016, bought three separate titles on St Stephens Ave and converted them into one title.
Existing dwellings were demolished to make way for a palatial 763sqm concrete block home with an estimated five bedrooms, three bathrooms, five car parks, swimming pool, pool house and basketball court.
After raising their children at the family home, dubbed ‘‘Klub Key’’ by son Max, Key and his wife Lady Bronagh decided to downsize by subdividing the property and building a new home, now largely complete, on what was the mansion’s basketball and tennis courts.
The new section the Keys are building on is 588sqm and has a land value of $3.6m.
Council documents show building consent for the new house, designed by Sumich Chaplin Architects, was approved in October 2017.
A resource consent report said that the house did not comply with special character overlay rules, with regard to height to boundary rules. However, the design, scale and materials of the new dwelling were sympathetic to the surrounding character so it was not an issue and consent was granted, council documents show.
New Zealand’s most expensive house sale ever was a clifftop mansion in Auckland’s Paritai Dr, Orakei, selling to China-born businessman Deyi Shi in 2013 for $39m.