You need an escape. You've been promising yourself for years. A view down a bush-clad valley to the sea. Kereru swooping overhead. Unpretentious. Elegant. Storied. Like a favourite jacket you slip on and feel good in - as you sip an ice-cold beverage and bask in the sunset.
Well my friend, you have found it.
Allen Curnow, who is probably, no, definitely, our country's first modern poet, built it. A butterfly-roofed, stone-cold Kiwi holiday classic. There are so few left. They don't survive because they're unliveable now. But not this one. This one has been gently modernised. Coaxed into the 21st century with a remake of its original kitchen, a heat pump, new water system, new appliances, insulation. In fact, incredibly, it has a Healthy Homes Certificate. Wonders never cease.
What it also has is almost 2,000 square metres across two freehold titles. So later, if you want, if you're so inclined, you could build another house further up. And Airbnb this one out, or have it for when the kids visit, or simply keep it as that place that makes you happy by taking you, almost instantly, back to a different, simpler time.
It's up to you. Or it would be, if you bought it...
And to buy it, you'll have to see it. You'll have to travel the 45 minutes out to Karekare from the city. You'll have to spend some time at one of the best beaches in the WORLD, then drive over the wooden bridge, past the waterfall, through a full five minutes of kauri-lined corners; to the house.
Maria will show you round. She's from Uruguay. She came to Auckland's West Coast over 23 years ago and never left. The current owner has had this house for 24 years. Most people keep their property out here for decades. It's a place that once it's in you, you can't shake; you don't want to.
A little like that favourite jacket, the one that you put on, and feel like you're... at peace.
* * *
Still here? Lingering? Maybe you're one of us: a West Coast lover, a valuer of privacy and space and nature and of filling your lungs with hyper-oxygenated air. So, you now ask, what's the price? Because in times like these - the Middle East, an election coming, everybody holding their breath - what does it actually cost to have a place to run away to? Somewhere away from the noise; elegant, unpretentious, and storied, looking down a bush-clad valley to the sea…
$750K.
It's either the most expensive jacket you'll ever buy, or the best thing you'll ever do for your soul.
Did we mention that Allen Curnow's writing desk is still there? And that when you sit at it, in the night, you can see the Piha Beacon sweep its light over the Tasman Sea every fifteen seconds, turned by old WWII radar gear that still thinks it's 1945…
Maria is waiting for your call.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/home-property/360949003/poet-allen-curnows-bach-bought-sight-unseen-now-listed-after-24-years
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/kiwi-director-selling-legendary-bach-in-west-aucklands-hollywood-beach-suburb-49107
