Charisma, and then some
Long-time residents share their memories, by ROBYN WELSH
With original Edwardian elegance, this 1910 villa has excelled at enticing its owners to live a long while and then come back to renew acquaintances.
Since the 1950s, there have been only three owners here and each has been charmed enough to visit and add their memories to its wider history.
For Vicki Seagar, a former accountant, and her husband Chris, a property valuer, those stories have added to their own
32 years living here. One story is of a retired judge, who planted most of the trees during his
1950s tenure. He knocked on their front door and told of having bought the house without having seen inside. An elderly woman lived there and, for long-forgotten reasons, he hadn’t been able to gain access.
During a recent open home, the family who lived here for more than 15 years before selling to the Seagars called by. The elderly mother, who came with her daughter, told Ray White’s Roy Champtaloup that you could feel the love in the house.
It’s a sentiment that has resonated with Vicki since day one. Happily living just five minutes away, she came to check out the house for sale.
It was the plaster ceilings through the entire house that won her over. “I saw the one in the hallway and I was pretty gobsmacked. It just got better and better. They’re in amazing condition even after 110 years. They’ve never moved because the house was built on concrete,” says Vicki.
As history tells it, those ceilings were fashioned by the craftsman who did the ceilings of the Civic Theatre in Queen Street, Auckland. The original archway, leadlight fanlights, stained glass windows, matai floors are among many original features, as are the Australianmade Federation veranda floor tiles.
Vicki and Chris’ renovations focussed on opening up the house with modern open plan living areas. Their eyes were always on context, character and functionality. They moved one double-thickness stained glass window to feature in their dining area. The wood burner/ cooker stayed put as the wider kitchen and casual living area was redeveloped around it.
Its layout is simple with the bedrooms/study at one end of the house and the living areas looking north-east across the 1970s updated pool. They’ve also updated the pool house which was a cottage they believe predated the house.
“We don’t have that many rooms but they’re all generous in size and great spaces to be in and that’s what has made this house so lovely for us to live in. The house had lots of natural light and we added still more to it,” says Vicki.
Amid raising four sons here, Vicki has further developed the grounds with its fruit trees, small edibles garden and structured planting. Ray White agent Roy Champtaloup, who marketing the property, : “In more than 18 years selling beautiful Remuera homes, this is the first time I have come across a massive 1,945m2 site that is virtually dead flat ,with beautiful established English gardens and an oversized pool in a no-exit/quiet leafy street.” Sale: Auction February 11 Contact: Roy Champtaloup, Ray White, 027 555 5557; Harry Champtaloup, 022 0363 015