– Antonia Prebble’s Kingsland home is for sale after 16 years of ownership.
– Prebble bought the house in 2009 during filming for Outrageous Fortune.
– The home hosted numerous cast parties and holds many cherished memories for Prebble.
Actor Antonia Prebble made her name in West Auckland, with hit shows Outrageous Fortune and Westside, but her real-life sanctuary is a blue villa in the central-city suburb of Kingsland.
But now that beloved home is on the market for sale after 16 years of cast parties, spa pool mishaps, and a surprise auction win between takes.
The Wellington-born Prebble told OneRoof she had never planned to be a long-term Auckland resident or homeowner, and there’s a story behind her purchase of 44 Second Avenue in 2009 for $670,000 at the tender age of 25.
Prebble bought 44 Second Avenue, in Auckland’s Kingsland, when she was 25. She nearly missed the auction due to shooting Outrageous Fortune. Photo / Supplied
Prebble, far right, as Loretta West in Outrageous Fortune. She spent five years on the hit show and also appeared in the prequel, Westside. Photo / TV3
“When I first moved up to do Outrageous Fortune, I was 20, and I assumed that I would come up to do the show for six months, and then I would go back down to Wellington. I was studying at Victoria University, and I thought I would keep on going with that life,” Prebble told OneRoof.
“But after I did season one, I just kept getting roles in Auckland, so I stayed and stayed and stayed. And then after a couple of years, I realised that perhaps, maybe I did live in Auckland. I sort of accidentally permanently moved, and then I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should start to look for a house and buy a house’.”
Prebble’s Outrageous Fortune character, Loretta West, was a Westie, through and through, and the TV3 show spent five years in and around Henderson – her “spiritual home” – so was there any chance she would have bought out west?
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Prebble said she had initially flatted in New Lynn, and on the advice of the show’s director, she spent considerable time in Pak’nSave Henderson to research her role, but her sights were on inner-Auckland suburbs by the time she came to buy.
“I looked for literally a year. I was in no real rush, and I wanted to wait for the right thing. I went to over 100 open homes. By the end, I’d walk in the front door and then just leave if I knew it wasn’t right. I was a professional open homer at the end of that year,” Prebble told OneRoof.
“But then it is quite a lovely magic story about how I ended up getting 44 Second Ave. I saw the listing in Herald Homes [the New Zealand Herald’s real estate magazine], and I went, ‘That’s my home’. Just from the photo.”
Prebble says she loves the home’s indoor-outdoor flow. Photo / Supplied
The villa has hosted many cast parties. Photo / Supplied
The blue colour really caught Prebble’s attention and that of a good friend, who spotted the very same listing and had the same idea. “It was kind of spooky,” Prebble said.
“I waited for the open home and I completely fell in love with it. After 100 open homes, this one felt right. I just had to buy it. It’s so charming, and it has this wonderful feeling to it. It feels like you are breathing out.”
Buying at auction proved more difficult than Prebble expected because at the exact time of the auction, Prebble was filming a dining room scene for Outrageous Fortune. The director changed the lunch break so that she could bid over the phone. However, the scene ran late. “It was this family dinner scene. There was always lots of laughter and debauchery,” she said.
The villa’s blue colour struck Prebble and her friend at the same time. Photo / Supplied
Prebble was clock-watching as the scene dragged on and on, fearing she had missed the auction. She ran for the phone as soon as they were finished and connected over a landline just as the auctioneer was finishing the preamble. The rest is history.
“I was thrilled. It was such a grown-up move for me. I was 25. I had never done this before. I didn’t even realise that settlement took a while.”
She does feel guilty to this day that she outbid a couple who were expecting a baby.
Prebble, along with her entire flat, moved into 44 Second Avenue. Over the next eight years, the home hosted numerous cast parties for Outrageous Fortune and later the prequel show Westside, in which she played Rita West, the grandmother of her character on Outrageous Fortune.
“We were filming Outrageous Fortune when I bought the house, so I would often have the cast and crew over and we would have viewing parties when the show went to air. Pre-streaming obviously. And then I subsequently filmed the first few seasons of Westside there, so again the cast would come over to have pre-drinks prior to the wrap party, or to watch eps as they came out.
“It was a wonderful house. It had indoor-outdoor flow, it had a unique, special, warm feeling. Everyone who walks in goes, ‘Wow’.”
The garden turned out to be Prebble’s favourite spot. “I made the most of the garden. You didn’t expect there to be this private oasis with beautiful palms out the back.”
And she has many an amusing memory from her time there with friends and flatmates. “We had a spa pool. I once put too much chlorine in it, and all our skin started falling off that week. There are lots of precious, lovely memories for me and my friends.”
The proximity to Kingsland shops was a real drawcard for Prebble and her flatmates at the time. “It was a stroll up and a stroll back,” she said. She has lost count of the number of times she has eaten the chilli prawns at the Canton Cafe. Jordanian-Kiwi restaurant Petra Schwama, was another firm favourite, and when the Portland Public House opened, Prebble, and friends made it their local.
After she met her now-husband, Dan Musgrove, on the set of Westside, he moved into the Kingsland house. But the couple decided to buy a joint home in nearby Morningside, where they live now with their two boys, aged four and six.
Prebble’s 104sqm home has three bedrooms, sits on 404sqm of land and has an RV $1.625m. It is listed for sale with Ray White Mt Eden agent Robyn Ellson.
– 44 Second Avenue, Kingsland, Auckland, goes to auction on December 3