A COLLECTABLE WORK OF ART

This landmark apartment conversion from a nightclub building comes with a colourful history, writes ROBYN WELSH.

AUCKLAND CENTRAL

”This is like buying a piece of fine artwork and is totally collectable when it comes to property portfolios.”

402/40 Kitchener Road

Built in 1912, this Edwardian landmark has hosted its share of colourful characters.

Criminals came and went from the old magistrate’s court. By the early 2000s, it was the high-flyers frequenting Otto's top floor restaurant and nightclub, above the glamorous entrance into the adjoining Metropolis apartments.

Then, in 2007 business couple Sally and Mark Synnott came looking for a city complement to their country lifestyle in Clevedon. “We drove past here and I cheekily said ‘I’d come

into town if we could buy that’, never thinking that could happen,” Sally says.

Never one to forgo a challenge, Mark made inquiries. They bought the top floor and they’ve never left, still living their best city/country life in one of the four apartments they created here.

Their apartment is at the Otto’s end. This slightly larger 235sqm apartment is at the nightclub end. Two smaller apartments they still own are in between.

When they put this apartment on the market four years ago, a prospective buyer asked to rent it out as a private art gallery for international buyers.

“Seeing this apartment as a gallery has made this feel even more like a creative, artistic project than a development,” says Sally.

“It has been a wonderful project that took several years and with all the bespoke features we’ve built into this apartment, I was just not ready not to be able to see it again.

“It has been a long goodbye really. We’re fine now about it being someone else’s home.”

Sally and Mark engaged Bruce Mackenzie of Mackenzie Architecture whose redesign included the master bedroom mezzanine and the solid oak “deck level” that defines the living/dining areas downstairs. Internal windows include the

top-hinged kitchen window that can be closed off while cooking.

The new recycled kauri ceiling, with discreet acoustic panels, has been given a “less rustic” touch from artist Ross Lewis. His work is in the plastered en suite wall and the aged zinc frames around the antique, pressed-steel doors.

Sally and her son Ted, now a furniture designer, collaborated on the woven copper ceiling in the media room that throws artistic reflections onto the walls. Ted designed the timber and steel staircase and Sally designed the cut-out panels.

For her feature wall, Sally enlisted the help of her friend, creative art director Bronwyn

Mackenzie to assemble the canvas-covered books chosen to suit her Cuban-inspired colours. Sally and Bronwyn, who is Bruce’s wife, also wallpapered one bedroom wall with pages from the early 1800s “Practical Builder” handbook.

Of this apartment with its same-level lift and car parks, Ross Hawkins from Ray White says “I have never seen such a high level of attention to detail and quality in every element of this masterpiece. This is like buying a piece of fine artwork and is totally collectable when it comes to property portfolios.” Sale: Set sale July 29

Contact: Ross Hawkins, Ray White, 027 472 0577; Richard Bull, 021 443361