The big, silver Packard moved heftily around the streets of Dunedin, slowing every now and then outside some notable homes for the driver to take a long, lingering look.
It was the early 1930s and the driver was Kevin Dun, an exuberant chap with an eye for fashion, now focused on building a house with his own take on contemporary style.
He was cruising for ideas, taking note of what he liked to help him and his architect create a house for a section on 27 Pitt St, which would become Mr Dun's inner-city home.
The house, designed by L.F. Woods, was built in 1935.
It overlooks a row of Victorian properties and sits among a clutch of flat-roofed homes characteristic of Art Deco in New Zealand.
Current owner Jan Taylor said the home she had spent the past three years restoring and redeveloping was testament to Mr Dun's eye for design and his enthusiastic, modern tastes.
In ''a strange sort of way'', she felt she had come to know more about Mr Dun through the home he left than through the admittedly few stories she had heard about him.
''He was obviously well known in dance and drama circles, but I've been unable to find out terribly much about him,'' the principal of St Bernadette's School said.
''But, I suppose the house has been a bit of a project, so learning more about Mr Dun has been something that has had to wait for more time, interesting as he no doubt will be.''
A neighbour who lived nearby during Mr Dun's time helped fill in some of the gaps, describing the English immigrant as a snappy dresser who stood out from the crowd.
Mr Dun was a ''flamboyant'' dance teacher and a seamster who designed and sewed the bride's dress and the bridesmaids' frocks for a neighbour's daughter's wedding.
Wife Doris Fleming, whose family had the Fleming and Company rolled oats mill in Gore, died relatively young, but Mr Dun's three-storey house was far from empty.
Mrs Taylor said Mr Dun invited a terminally-ill, cancer-afflicted family friend to live out her days at 27 Pitt St.
The move was a strong tonic for Miss Haggart: she lived there, with Mr Dun and his sister Kitty, for more than a decade, she said.
''So, Mr Dun was obviously a welcoming sort of person, and I have to say when I first came here, I had this wonderful sense of it being a welcoming place,'' Mrs Taylor said.
''I saw the for sale sign and I was barely inside when I decided I had to try and buy it.''
South Canterbury-raised Mrs Taylor had her eye on the neighbourhood - an ''enclave of interesting styles'' - for many years.
In Otago and Southland Heritage Homes, Tessa Ward describes 27 Pitt St as echoing the Mediterranean style of some Californian mansions built in the 1920s.
It sits alongside Art Deco-style homes of flat roofs, stucco cladding, rounded corners and reduced decoration.
But behind the brick and plaster veneer, Mrs Taylor found a home whose layout needed a revamp.
The house was replete with original features: curved archway doors, Swedish wallboard, iridescent and leadlight windows, and arts and crafts-inspired brass ceiling lights.
As well as the usual kitchen, dining room, lounge and formal lobby, the ground floor had a coal store, a maid's room and what used to be Mr Dun's den.
And, crucially, it had a comfortably large basement garage for the hand-built silver Packard that took Mr Dun to his many theatre and dance engagements.
Most of the ground floor would be re-arranged to give her three young grandchildren some space to play in and, these days, for use as a bed and breakfast.
''The house has to work as a home as well as part of the retirement plan, and to stay in keeping with the area it is in,'' Mrs Taylor said.
''When you look outside, we're in the middle of some wonderful homes of the Deco and Victorian era, and I think it is important to try and keep that heritage alive.''
The bed and breakfast idea was the retirement plan for the end of a teaching career that started in rural schools, led to Fiji, and grew into life membership of the Otago Primary Principals' Association.
She joked her colleagues would have to keep guessing about when she would retire, and suggested there was every chance the redevelopment at 27 Pitt St would not be her last.
''Mr Dun's home has been a wonderful project, but sometimes the fun is in the doing.''
