NZ Visual Diary - entry 226

Intimations of a Fantasy - 34 Bradford Street (Parnell)

My grandson has played cricket for several years. The new season began this week with his first practice. My daughter’s partner offered to take him to practice, and I suggested they meet me for a quick burger in the nearby business district of Parnell, Auckland’s oldest suburb.

I decided to walk the several kilometres from my apartment to the dinner rendezvous and further explore the posh Parnell residential neighbourhoods along the way. One of those neighbourhoods, Dilworth Terrace, features a magnificent assortment of Victorian era terrace houses, a British term for row or townhouses. In a previous post, I included a photograph of a terrace house in the Dilworth Terrace neighbourhood of Parnell.

My stroll beyond Dilworth Terrace took me along Bradford Street. At number 34 I was stopped in my tracks, bewitched by an architectural flight of fancy.

The actual dwelling at Number 34 Bradford Street is huge - 420 square metres or 4500 square feet. I had to use Google Earth to appreciate its massive, if not also conventional, footprint.

The architectural illusion is presented in the form of a charming street facade that gives the passerby the impression of a movie set from old Hollywood westerns: a front facade with nothing behind it. (I did offer a small hint of the hidden home by not removing from my rendering the metal chimney cap that peeks above the capstone.) Indeed, the canard extends to the 1872 dating on the capstone. The house was built in 1910.

No surprise to discover that the residence is home to an architectural studio.