A story around every corner
Its days as a boarding house are now a mere blip in this home’s hundredyear history, writes Graham Hepburn
When people ask Paul Leighton how long he’s been working on restoring his early 1900s home, he tells them, “I’m 20 years into a three- year project”. That sense of humour kept him going as he chipped away at a huge project, returning the home to its former glory after it was chopped into smaller rooms and run as a boarding house.
“I like to be busy and enjoy working with my hands,” says Paul.
Not long after he and his late wife Linda bought the property in 1996, they embarked on a major addition, extending the top storey with the help of architectural consultants Peter G Beaumont & Associates.
This seamless addition adds to the home’s grand proportions, something that was slowly revealed as Paul opened up the rooms.
“As I pulled it to bits, I’d see the different room layouts of the original home,” Paul says. “The living area, for example, was divided up into five rooms.”
The Leightons also had a stone wall built around the property and removed some trees to develop gardens that feature port wine magnolias and flowering cherries, with box hedging fringed with grasses providing structure. Linda, who was an Auckland City councillor, was the driving force behind creating the formal gardens. The new greeny- grey and white colour scheme on the weatherboard and shingle exterior sits well in the garden compared to the previous brown hues.
Stained- glass panels flank the front door and these were used as inspiration for other stainedglass windows that the Leightons had made for other parts of the house.
Inside, the home’s timber floors and joinery have been beautifully restored including wood panels in the formal lounge that have been stripped back and oiled.
Paul says this lounge used to be a smoking room for “the old boys” and the ceiling was yellowed by smoke. These days it is white and restored, and the room is warmed by a modern open fireplace.
Across the hallway, the formal dining room looks out to the front garden, and further down the
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* 4 off- street parks. hallway is a bathroom and laundry before you reach the airy open- plan kitchen/ dining/ living area. Rimu cabinetry and benches feature in the kitchen, which the Leightons had built.
A bank of windows on the western wall overlooks the swimming pool, as does the patio on the northern side of the house.
At the opposite end of the house, back past the entrance, there is another living space with a curved bay window and modern open fire that Paul uses as a TV room, and a bedroom across the hall.
A wooden staircase curves up to the top floor where there are four more bedrooms and two tiled bathrooms.
At the top of the stairs there is a window seat with views to the south.
“I remember when we came to look at the house we sat there thinking what we could do with it,” says Paul.
At this end of the house, the master bedroom has a corner window seat, an en suite with railway tiles, and an office nook flanked by wooden pillars that has a walk- in wardrobe off it.
At the northern end of the house, another large bedroom has views of One Tree Hill to the north and the Manukau Harbour and Pah Homestead and Monte Cecilia Park to the west.
The latter was one of Linda’s passions. As a city councillor she fought to have the historic house and park preserved.
One of the bedrooms off the hall has a small door that opens to a kids’ playspace — a favourite spot for grandchildren.
With his work done here, Paul is not moving far — “about 400m as the crow flies” but has bought a modern home on a smaller site.
“I want to spend more time at the beach and with the grandkids.”