Bring furry friends to Coatesviille

694 Ridge Road, Coatsville,Auckland. Photo / Ted Baghurst

694 RIDGE RD COATESVILLE

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SIZE: Land 1.352ha, house 220sq m.

PRICE INDICATION: Offers around $1million. Auction July 9.

INSPECT: Sat/Sun 1-2pm.

ON THE WEB: harcourts.co.nz/KM110604

SCHOOL ZONES: Ridgeview School, Massey High.

CONTACT: Andrea Turzynski, Harcourts, ph 027 662 4501.

FEATURES: Thirty-year-old, two-storey Lockwood house set on 1.352ha, divided into a home paddock and two livestock paddocks, 12 minutes from Albany. The house is heated by a log burner and has views from the top floor over the upper Waitemata Harbour to the Sky Tower.

When you're an animal lover you need space. It doesn't matter that you're a practising lawyer, working from chambers in the centre of Auckland, a small section somewhere in suburbia just won't do.

That was the challenge facing Louise when she made a lifestyle change in 1999, moving from Texas, where she had been a teacher, to Auckland, where she first studied and then began practising law.

Her father was a Kiwi, she'd been here many times before, and loved the culture and lifestyle. So she brought along her two dogs, three cats and horse - and was realistic enough to know more animals would be added along the way.

In 2001, Louise and her parents found a property on what was then a shingle road, in a rural area some way from urban Auckland.

Since then, there have been a few changes. First, Coatesville stopped being "the back of beyond", as Albany became more heavily developed, and Ridge Rd was sealed. It's now home to some of the largest, most lavish, lifestyle properties in the Auckland region.

Second, Louise began volunteering for the SPCA, and along the way she acquired more animals (three dogs, five cats, 21 chickens, three goats, two pigs, three rabbits and one cattle beast at last count).

On the property, she planted fruit trees and put in some fences. In the house, she put slate tiles throughout the ground floor living areas - a solution that worked not just for her love of animals, but also her love of entertaining friends.

And those friends started thinking differently about coming around for dinner.

"In the beginning, I got 'You live in the boondocks'," she says. "But it's really hard with the growth of Albany to argue you live in the country."

Instead, she says, what she has is the best of both worlds - a property on which she can indulge her love of animals, enjoy the colours of autumn, the view over fields and the upper Waitemata Harbour to the Sky Tower and the peace and quiet - all within just 12 minutes of the country's largest shopping centre, restaurants and cinemas.

Perhaps more importantly, she says, it took her just 45 minutes on average to commute into her inner-city chambers during the working week. She was told the secret to an easy commute by the former owners: "In on the Northwest [Motorway], home on the Northern." And she reckons when the Upper Harbour Motorway improvements are completed (expected later this year) the commute will be even easier.

The house Louise bought was relatively large by the standards of the day, even if larger, more luxurious homes have sprung up around it since.

The ground floor houses an open-plan dining and living area that opens on to a north-facing patio through bifold doors, with a separate large kitchen, a bathroom (which looks out over paddocks to the view beyond) and toilet, and internal-entry double garage, containing the laundry.

Upstairs are two large bedrooms, a smaller bedroom or study, a bathroom, and an intriguing master suite. The bedroom is enormous, and maximises the spectacular view. It leads to another large room which Louise has used as her study, but could be a large nursery or a quiet lounge for adults.

There's also a large storage room, big enough to convert into an en-suite bathroom, and a large storage loft.

This property, says Louise, has perfectly combined her favourite things: animals, entertaining, the countryside and her work.

"I've had the best of both worlds. I lived in the country, I had this great retreat, but I was just knocking on the door of Auckland."

Louise has moved to Wellington to further her career, and gets quite emotional when talking about the place she's leaving behind. She knows she'll find another great property in her new city that will accommodate all her animals and give her the lifestyle she wants, but she really doesn't want to leave this one behind.

"I haven't regretted one day of being there. I just hope whoever gets it loves it."