From $40k to $4m....

When antiques dealer John McClenaghan bought an Auckland kauri mansion for a paltry $40,000, he wouldn't have known that, six years later, he would be selling it - for about $4 million.

That extraordinary appreciation is testament to a great deal of work and money spent, and also to the grand vision McClenaghan had when he first saw the former retirement home in St Vincent Ave, Remuera.

"I just walked into the stairwell and I had to have it," he says. "It was an impulse buy."

The magnificent two-storey home, nearly a century old but now upgraded to near new condition, was formerly known as St Elizabeth House.

McClenaghan rechristened it The Grey House - although the Jigsaw House would be equally apposite.

He bought the 668sq m mansion on a whirlwind trip back to New Zealand from London, where he had lived for 18 years. The building was then chopped into 10 pieces ready to be transported by truck north to the shores of Mahurangi Harbour.

To read the full NZ Herald Article click here.

Posted: 23 Nov 2008

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