KEY POINTS:
An Auckland home sitting on a $10 million double site fronting exclusive Paritai Drive was once used as a bar and brothel for American servicemen during World War II.
And there's a story about a stash of gold coins buried on the site that won't go away.
But
the home's colourful history and the gold bullion may be lost forever. The house in Orakei's Tuhaere St and another adjoining property in front, on Paritai Dr, are for sale.
The combined site, nearly half an acre in size, is zoned for three dwellings on land that has escalated markedly in value since American servicemen sang and drank at an Art Deco bar on a deserted Orakei promontory.
The pretty mock-Tudor house has had only two owners since bar owner Joe Kennedy entertained servicemen during the war.
Kennedy originally had a bar in Queen St, but when police closed it down for serving drinks late into the night in the days of early closing, he packed up and moved his thriving business into his home in Orakei.
He called it The Biltmore Club, and with no neighbours to complain, the servicemen partied through the night at the bar - which had been removed in its entirety from the Queen St club - while upstairs a brothel did a roaring trade.
Kennedy died in a plane crash in the early 50s, leaving his several girlfriends wondering where he had hidden his reportedly huge stash of gold American Eagle coins he had earned from the grateful servicemen.
After Kennedy's death, the property was sold to Hector Goodfellow, the son of Sir William Goodfellow, from one of New Zealand's prominent families. At that stage the house was still occupied by Kennedy's girlfriends, who had moved in and still talked about the mystery of Joe's gold bullion. Goodfellow lived there for 30 years, changing little about the house, leaving even the red lights in the Art Deco bar area.
When he sold the property to the current owners, Pat and Kay O'Connor, 25 years ago, he passed on its history and the bar with its red lights, which are still there today.
Pat O'Connor has an early photograph of the house, showing it as the only building on the Orakei headland.
He remembers a taxi driver friend visiting the house shortly after he bought it from Goodfellow.
"He stopped in his tracks, looked around and said he had been here before. He told me 'The band used to set up over there, the madam was in that room, and the girls were working upstairs for the American servicemen'."
O'Connor, an importer and co-founder of New Zealand Finance, said he had searched the house and grounds thoroughly for Joe Kennedy's American Eagle coins but had found nothing. He has yet to try a metal detector. But O'Connor doesn't have long to find the treasure.
The tender for the house and the adjoining property in front, 74 Paritai Dr, closes this week.
Interest is expected to be high, particularly as wealthy businessman Trevor Farmer owns the two properties on either side of the Paritai Dr site.
