Former Westpac boss's clifftop mansion sold - to his own bank

The North Shore house, valued at $6.8 million, comes with views to Rangitoto.

The luxury North Shore clifftop mansion of a former bank boss who has returned to Australia has been sold - to his own bank.

Westpac struck an agreement with its former boss here to buy his designer house if it was not sold in an agreed time.

The Overseas Investment Office has approved the bank's application to buy 22 Winscombe St, Belmont, from the bank's former New Zealand boss for a secret sum.

In 2007, Brad Cooper and his partner, Joanne Walker, bought Robin and Erica Congreve's designer Belmont house known locally as the "bunker", for its tough appearance, sturdy square style and dark grey exterior walls.

The house overlooking a golden beach has drawn much praise and comment since it was finished in 1994.

Two thousand tonnes of concrete, wood and stainless steel were used in its construction and the house faces Rangitoto Island.

But views are opened up only in gradual glimpses through long vertical windows.

The two-level house is one of the country's most praised and has won many awards for architect Pip Cheshire, formerly of Jasmax. In 2001, it topped the NBR list of the 100 best New Zealand homes.

Agents marketing the house this year boasted that this 1000sq m home on a 2314sq m site had garaging for eight cars, a movie theatre, heated pool, art work by Ralph Hotere and clifftop vistas to Rangitoto.

Cooper was here for little more than a year and the house has been on the market for months.

Now, Westpac says it needed state clearance to buy the house - partly because Cooper is an Australian and partly because Westpac is 92.8 per cent Australian-owned.

"Relocation arrangements agreed in connection with Mr Cooper taking up a new position with Westpac in Sydney included Westpac's purchase of the property at a price determined by reference to independent valuations if a third-party buyer was not found within an arranged period," the application for the property's purchase said.

The price Westpac is paying has been suppressed.

QV lists the property as being worth $6.8 million, of which $4.1 million is its clifftop section, which is next to a reserve.