Devonport Family Oasis

Available for the summer season only

Step through the gate of this classic Devonport villa and the back of the section is the reason you came.

A heated lap pool runs the length of the garden, glass-fenced, with a wide timber deck along one side for towels, books and long afternoons. Beside it, raised on its own deck among the palms, sits a cedar hot tub the place everyone ends up once the sun drops and the children have finally been called out of the water. Because the pool is heated, it is swimmable right through the season, not only on the hot days.

Next to the pool, fenced separately behind glass, is a full astroturf basketball half-court. It is a genuine rarity on a Devonport section, and it is the thing older children and teenagers will remember about this holiday. Parents will quietly appreciate that the court and the pool are fenced apart from one another.

Off the kitchen there is a covered deck for shaded lunches, and the living room opens through bifold doors straight onto the pool terrace, so on a good day the inside and outside of this house become one space.

Inside, the villa has been beautifully renovated without losing what makes it lovely: wide oak floors, high ceilings, a freestanding wood burner, a window seat built for reading, and a glimpse of water from the living room.

The bedrooms

Upstairs, three bedrooms sit together in the main house:

The primary bedroom has a king bed

Two front bedrooms, one with a bay window to the veranda, each have a queen

They share a family bathroom with a bath and a separate shower, and there is a separate toilet as well.

Downstairs is the part that makes this house work for families with older children. A self-contained lower level has its own bedroom with a king single and walk-in wardrobe, its own bathroom, a second kitchen, a recreation room and its own entrance and patio. A teenager can come and go, cook toast at midnight and have their own front door, without anyone upstairs losing sleep over it.

Sleeps seven in total.

Where you are:

Cowper Street is a quiet street of restored villas and picket fences, sitting neatly between two beaches. Narrow Neck, wide and sheltered and north-facing, is a short walk one way. Cheltenham, with its white sand and Rangitoto square on the horizon, is a walk the other. The village bakeries, the wine bar, the Vic cinema, a proper butcher and grocer is minutes away, and the ferry will have you in downtown Auckland in twelve minutes.