Television: Ambitious Auckland house rebuild project rewrites street's history

Lin Ferguson Photo/File

The Art of The Architect, 7.30pm, Thursday, TV One, would not be on everyone's must-view list on telly.

It is a worthy programme, detailed, and stands alone when it comes to the dozens of other property buy, sell or build programmes.

It wins on all fronts, particularly with its great host, Peter Elliot. Even though it's pretty obvious we're dealing with the mid and upper strata of society, well, those with the dosh or the means to borrow large sums, he tells their story in a warm and personable manner.

This week's home builder was a young couple with two small children living in a bungalow in Grey Lynn, Auckland.

Their tatty bungalow was falling apart, it was raining leaks, had great craters of rot and was on a decided lean. The wife had bought the old bungalow 10 years ago at a bargain price.

But to be transformed into the dry, healthy home these two wanted to bring their children up in, renovation costs would have been astronomical.

After months of mulling it over, they decided they loved the street and the area and didn't want to move but didn't want to renovate, either. That set the new home architectural ball rolling.

They both had a clear idea of what style of home they wanted and contacted renowned Auckland architect Malcolm Walker, who also happened to live and work in Grey Lynn.

The process of lifting and moving the old house off the site and start from scratch was long and protracted with agonising hold-ups and flak from neighbours.

Then the criticism came from half of Auckland, it seemed, when they were named in the local media.

This was a heritage-protected street and hundreds of people had something to say, most of it not pleasant.

Architect Walker was a very pleasant chap with a wry sense of humour who chatted with presenter Elliot throughout the arduous process of gaining resource consent from the Auckland City Council and the build of the new house - ever-dependent on the weather. He spoke of those small things that go wrong, tipping the balance and testing everyone's resolve - almost to the point of taking desperation measures.

It was months before they got permission to load up the old bungalow.

The entire neighbourhood turned out at 3am to watch the house sliced in half and hoisted up, trucked off to a new address and owner in Kingsland a few kilometres away.

And once the old house's fake brick cladding was stripped off, revealing heart rimu timber, the old dunger was done up and sold for $750,000. This is Auckland, remember.

After three-and-a-half years of red tape, the new modernist home is up and is absolutely spectacular. In fact it's so good it looks like it just grew there; it slotted into the landscape and was utter perfection.

As Malcolm Walker said, it was the heritage of the future.