45 Clifton Rd in Takapuna, Auckland. Photo / Getty Images
45 CLIFTON RD TAKAPUNA
SIZE:
Land 1391sq m, house 270sq m.
PRICE INDICATION:
CV $5.4 million. For sale by negotiation.
INSPECT:
By appointment.
SCHOOL ZONES:
Hauraki Primary School, Belmont Intermediate School, Takapuna Grammar School.
CONTACT:
Paul Barnao, Barfoot & Thompson, ph 524 0149 or 021 920 745.
FEATURES:
Waterfront architecturally designed 1950s house, with main living areas flush with a flat, cliff-top garden. Native timbers, including heart rimu, matai and tawa, throughout the house.
Sisters Jocelyn Calderwood and Jennie Ducker are convinced that their childhood home is located on the best seafront section in Auckland.
Situated at the very southern tip of Takapuna Beach, the 1391sq m property has both cliff and beach access. Yet - thanks to strategic plantings of pohutukawa and other
species in the 1950s - the property is the most private of all Takapuna's beachfront dwellings.
The home's master bedroom, family lounge, dining room, informal sunroom, kitchen and even the laundry all have panoramic beach and ocean views.
In a way, it's a matter of luck that the 1950s house was designed so in tune with its surroundings.
The sisters' parents, Merv Blair and his wife Jean, had bought the bare land and had architect's plans drawn up for a traditional 1950s house facing the road. However, a trip to California to visit friends intervened with the young couple's plans for the section, which had been carved out of a large local estate. Merv and Jean were so inspired by American architectural styles that they sidelined the original plans and employed architect Alan Rigby of Rigby Mullan to recreate what they had seen in the Northern Hemisphere.
Fortunately Merv and Jean had contacts overseas thanks to owning a well-known textiles company. This allowed the couple to order fixtures and fittings from abroad including an Indian carpet, which was delivered to New Zealand in one piece, but had to be cut to be brought inside.
Jocelyn and Jennie remember an idyllic childhood at the property. The family moved in on Jennie's seventh birthday, where the children revelled in blowing hooters at the builders. The pink-and-white imported ballerina wallpaper in Jennie's room was the envy of all the little girls at the party.
"There were a lot of unusual features in the design," says Jennie. "The exposed stairwell and the vertical [panelled] boards were unheard of, even though we don't think of them as unusual now."
The cliff-top sunroom provides the hub for family living. The house has four other communal living areas: the dining room, formal lounge, den, and downstairs rumpus room, which has hosted everything from table tennis competitions to teenage parties.
Life was an endless summer for the girls who treated the beach as an extended backyard. Sometimes they were given six pence and sent around the rocks to the Pirate Ship cafe in Milford for icecream, when Mum and Dad needed some peace and quiet.
Jennie's fondest memories of the property are launching her pram dinghy, rowing to Narrow Neck Beach or Milford for a picnic.
Jocelyn, an altogether different child to her sister, remembers the tanned and attractive teenage boys who frequented the beach and hours spent boogie boarding and jumping off the King and Queen rocks between Takapuna and Clifton beaches.
With no Auckland Harbour Bridge, Takapuna was a small community, says Jocelyn. "There was a great crowd of teenagers here in those days and we're still friends."
Jocelyn travelled by bus and ferry to St Cuthbert's College for schooling and her sister followed suit for a while. These days it's much easier to reach Auckland's top private schools. The Kristin School bus stops just over the road from the house and it's a few minutes' walk to pick up a bus that goes direct to Jocelyn's old school as well as Diocesan School for Girls, and King's School.
The sisters are sad to give up the family home and joke about winning Lotto to buy the other one out. However, they will certainly leave with a lot of cherished memories.
