Lennel House, built in 1880, is on the open market again. The property had recently been up for auction, but was passed in after failing to attract an opening bid at auction on August 29.
Lennel House at 102 Albert St, was built by one of the city’s founding fathers, John Turnbull Thomson, whose name also appears in two other frequented Invercargill land marks — Turnbull Thomson Park and Thomson’s Bush.
As the newly appointed chief surveyor for Otago, Thompson’s role was to choose the site for Invercargill.
He retired from Wellington life 1880 and wanted to settle in Invercargill where he he previously bought several blocks of land — including Lennel’s original 157.82 ha.
He died in 1884 and lived in the home for only two years after its completion in 1882 with his family of nine children.
The two-storey, eight-bedroom Victorian style property has a Historic Places Trust Category 1 listing and its land area covered most of what is now known as the Gladstone area.
The property’s original entrance was from Park St and the extensive gardens on the original land block were maintained by a gardener. But land development has whittled the once substantial land area down to 1.3ha.
Quotable Value website says Lennel has a $1.88 million capital value and $1.6m land value, but the property has a $1m price tag.
The bricks for its double-brick plastered exterior were transported along the Waihopai River.
Bayleys Southland sales agent Kylie Young said Lennel held significant potential and options for its future.
Most people who visited Lennel open homes hoped its future would include something the whole community could enjoy, she said.
Many ideas had been floated, including converting the property to join the boutique hospitality market.
"We’ve found the genuine interest has tended to be [from people] that just are quite passionate about the historic nature of it and restoring it, giving it back to the city with being able to provide another cool venue to hang out at."
There had been significant interest in Lennel since it came on the market and there had been about 55 viewings.
However, many of the viewings were out of curiosity, and genuine purchasers were mainly property developers who wanted to carve up the remaining land area for more development, Ms Young said.
But Historic Places Trust protections, land covenants, and several registered significant trees on the land guarded the property from further subdivision.
One tree was planted to celebrate Queen Victoria’s jubilee and the rhododendron bushes were also protected.
However, she expected those who were genuinely interested in buying the historic homestead were still completing due diligence to ensure they fully understood the responsibilities involved with owning a property of significant historical significance.
"It’s definitely a special property. . . there’s a tennis court . . . heaps of land and heaps of potential."
Its new owner needed to have the passion to continue the journey of restoring it to is former glory, she said.
The property passed from the Thompson family to the Hall-Jones family in 1925. They owned it until 1991.
In 1998 Denys and Jocelyn Finlayson bought Lennel for $90,000 at a bank auction.
Heritage New Zealand said the Finlayson family had focused on renovating the home’s interiors and planned for the home to be passed down the family.
Its current owners, William Finlayson and Laura Thompson, later bought the homestead to continue the work Mr and Mrs Finlayson had started.
