Eliza’s Manor is for sale again after more refurbishment. It sold for $540,000 five years ago, but is now for sale again with a rating value five times that figure.
Eliza’s Manor in central Christchurch is a restored, repaired and upgraded Victorian mansion.
Built by a politician in 1861, it has an ornate interior and a heritage listing to go with it .
The Bealey Ave property, now run as a luxury boutique hotel with eight suites, is for sale with vacant possession and could be used commercially or as a spacious home.
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It has an August 2019 rating valuation from the city council of $2.76 million, of which $2.61m is for land value and just $150,000 for the value of the mansion.
The property had been earthquake repaired by then owners Ann Zwimpfer and Harold Williams when they sold it in 2016 to New Oriental Investment Ltd, owned by the Zhang family. The Zhangs have since done extensive work, including strengthening and rewiring the house, repairing the roof and facade repairs, and repainting the exterior. It was reopened as a boutique hotel in April this year.
Real estate advertising for the property describes the upgrade as a “labour of love” and praises the owners’ “fastidious attention to detail”.
The work was done with the help of a $70,000 heritage grant from the city counci l. As a condition of the grant, the owners agreed to put a 20-year conservation covenant on the property title. Eliza’s Manor in 2009, before the Canterbury earthquakes. The exterior has since been repainted and the building has been strengthened. The council report said the house has “high architectural significance”, and noted the craftsmanship of the ornate kauri staircase and other decorative features.
The property is also considered to have historic and cultural significance to the city.
It is the only survivor of several grand Victorian homes that once stood in the area, the council report said.
Christchurch solicitor and Canterbury Provincial councillor Charles Wyatt built the house as a private home after buying the land for 600 pounds, according to Heritage NZ. The building has a category two heritage listing.Over the years the house has been used as a children’s home, a school boarding house, a maternity hospital, a complex of flats, and a restaurant and function venue.At the time of the earthquakes, Zwimpfer and Williams had recently finished refurbishing the building and had to set about repairing i t twice – once after the September 2010 shake and again in 2011.Real estate agent Norman Engel of Savills said neither he nor the Zhang family wished to comment on the latest sale.New Zealand in 1900 had seen nothing like it – a mega-mansion, the largest wooden house […]
