In one of the biggest local residential property deals of the year, a landmark lakefront residence, only 10 minutes’ walk from the Queenstown CBD, has just sold.
An Australian party has bought the Thomas House on Park St, between Adelaide and Suburb Sts, for an eight-figure sum.
Dubbed a ‘Queenstown masterpiece’, the 451sqm home, including a self-contained art studio, was completed in 2000 as a holiday home for Australian environmental philanthropists David and the late Barbara Thomas.
They retained renowned Australian architect Andrew Wiley, who adopted a mid-century modernistic aesthetic.
The sale was brokered by another Aussie, local Colliers agent James O’Hagan, who says leveraging his Australian network paid dividends — ‘‘so perhaps there might be some value in being Australian from time to time’’.
He says the sale price is undisclosed, but it’s thought to be well north of its $11,590,000 capital value.
O’Hagan originally marketed the property last year, but took it off the market to allow for a boundary adjustment so the property’s empty back section, 2 Suburb St, could be sold as a separate entity — in the event, the new owner bought both this site and 90 Park St.
This sale came only five weeks after the property was relaunched.
O’Hagan says the vendor was ‘‘ideally looking for a party who fully appreciated the architecture and the landscaping and the iconic nature of the home’’.
‘‘A passion for mid-century modern design was something both the vendor and the purchaser shared, and both have extensively toured a number of [American architect] Frank Lloyd Wright properties in the United States.’’
Meanwhile, O’Hagan notes he’s now sold more than $24m of property in Park St in the past two years, ‘‘and I’ve now decided to reside on the street myself’’.
