There are as many different responses to the villa as there are types of villas in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland: the beloved wooden form takes many forms – as do their owners’ efforts to modernise them.
Twenty-five years ago, the owners of this expansive villa fell in love with its subtle, almost Queenslander quality: less Victorian frou, more airy grace. There's a walled courtyard to the street, with established planting. A verandah wraps around two sides to the front, with doors directly from a grand dining room to the outside. Instead of a front door opening directly into the hall, entry is to one side, creating a pause. Inside, rooms are airy and generous, with original pressed-tin ceilings imported from the United Kingdom throughout. A wide hallway leads to a succession of rooms currently used as bedrooms, an office and a den – but which have that pleasant multi-purpose feel that villas do so well. (The owners have used different rooms for different functions over the years as their family has grown.) There's that generous original dining room, and another den tucked in beside.
At the end of the hall, things change, with an airy modern extension designed by architect Paul Brown 20 years ago: two storied and clean-lined, it makes sense of the sloping site, wrapping around a northwerstern pool courtyard on one side, and leading out to a garden framed by an established pin oak and subtropical planting to the south. While it’s contemporary, it doesn’t feel alien, thanks to its clean lines and clear separation from the original.
On the top floor, a couple of steps down from original floor level, there’s a primary bedroom suite containing walk-in wardrobe, bathroom and an airy bedroom that seems to hover in the trees: with a polished concrete floor, it feels solidly anchored and substantial.
Downstairs, reached down a light-filled staircase past the pool, is a generous open-plan living area with a high stud and clean lines. There's both scullery off the kitchen, and an enormous dedicated laundry. Here, the feel is classically contemporary: concrete floors, anodised aluminium joinery, walls of glass that slide away to the pool and garden. By day, it's light-filled and casual: at night, it comes alive with carefully placed garden lighting and a kind of resort feel. A garden gate, meanwhile, gives access directly onto Potters Park.
This expansive, flexible family home is now for sale with Louise De Martin and Lesley McLellan of Sotheby's: the epitome of the Auckland villa, redefined.
13 Dexter Avenue
Maungawhau Mount Eden
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
