Finished. Ready to move in. Seeking the last 21 members of The Greenhouse community.
Nearly seven years have elapsed since we purchased the site on Willamson Avenue and Pollen Street with an ambitious vision to express an Aotearoa aesthetic. Auckland’s amazing landscape – notably our glorious, imposing Waitakere Ranges bejewelled with their unique black sand beaches – was our design inspiration.
Our hope was to create a landmark building for Tāmaki Makaurau, one that would be embraced by its citizens.
A building that people would stop on the street to gaze at; would capture different moods of the city at dawn or dusk; would be a thing of beauty in the glare of the March sun or the gloom of deep grey wintercdf and only grow lovelier with age. It had to be original and timeless, simultaneously anti-contemporary and classic – a tough, some said impossible, ask.
The Greenhouse blossoms with singular features: a shimmering façade comprising of 150,000 iridescent, green-glazed, handmade bricks from Italy’s Sant Anselmo, meticulously detailed interiors, quality and attention to detail reminiscent of beloved Auckland buildings.
There is even a luxurious, wood-panelled, first-floor residents’ lounge and dining room that captures the evening sun and oozes 1920s opulence.
We think we have done what we set out to do and we hope Aucklanders agree. For me, as a builder of 28 years, who started out doing spec houses with my brother Carl and has specialised in central Auckland apartment building since, founding Ockham with my best mate Benjamin Preston in the madness of the GFC, it’s been the project of a lifetime.
It has been an honour to dream, design, consent, market, and construct this building entirely in-house alongside my incredibly talented and dedicated Ockham colleagues.
The term ‘passion project’ is so overused that it’s nearly bloodless, but to have (at the time of writing) 750 RSVPs to our open day on the last weekend of February – that people around the neighbourhood like what they see enough to want to pop in – is as big a validation as we could hope for.
I am exceptionally proud that the Ockham team has delivered The Greenhouse through the toughest construction environment I have seen.
Together, we got through a pandemic with hard lockdowns, shortages of you-name-it, the worst construction inflation in a quarter century, and throughout 2023, rain of biblical proportions.
Any developer or house-builder finishing a large property in Auckland in early 2024 has probably been in Sisyphean combat with a rock for several years and has finally, breathlessly pushed it to the top of the hill, only to see there’s a steeper hill just ahead – but we carry on.
The largest apartments at The Greenhouse are sold, with people moving in from early March, and we are looking for the last 21 people to join our community in what we think is Auckland’s most irresistible suburb.
There is a variety of corner two bedrooms (northwest facing), one bedroom plus study (northwest facing), and studios (east facing and west facing), priced from $790k through to $1.725m.
Some of our residents wanted a new place in the centre of the action, some are downsizing from family homes in farther-flung suburbs, others were after a no-maintenance Auckland bolthole. Whatever your reason, The Greenhouse will always be a building you’ll be proud to call home.
Mark Todd, Founder and head of acquisition and conception
Ockham Residential
www.ockham.co.nz/the-greenhouse/
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Published: March 2024