– A Cambridge villa once owned by Eric Murray sold for $1.23m at auction.
– The three-bedroom home, renovated by Murray, was popular with buyers and sold above its RV.
– Murray and Thea Lyle spent 18 months renovating the 1910 villa into a modern family home.
A Cambridge villa formerly owned by Olympic gold medallist Eric Murray has sold for $1.23 million – more than $100,000 above its RV.
The property, which Murray sold last year after carrying out an extensive renovation, was snapped up at a Bayleys auction on Tuesday.
Bidding on the three-bedroom trophy home opened at $1.1m and jumped to $1.13m, after which there was a pause for negotiations.
The property came back to the floor 24 minutes later at $1.23m and was declared on the market. There were no further bids, and the hammer came down.
The property was given an all-star makeover by champion rower Eric Murray and his partner, Thea Lyle. Photo / Supplied
OneRoof reached out to Bayleys’ listing agent Amanda Merrington for comment, but had not heard back at the time of publication.
Merrington told OneRoof last month that the Victoria Street villa had been popular with buyers at the open homes.
She had sold the property to the vendors last year for $1.2m and told OneRoof that they were selling up to be closer to family, now that they had a baby on the way.
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The vendors had snapped up the house in September last year one week after it hit the market.
Merrington told OneRoof at the time: “They viewed the property within 24 hours of it going online, and made a pre-auction offer within a few hours of that. They knew straight away.”
Murray and his partner, Thea Lyle, spent 18 months and hundreds of thousands of dollars transforming the tired 1910 villa into a modern family home.
The property was stylishly presented and listed with the same agent who sold it last year. Photo / Supplied
The champion rower told OneRoof last year that he was extremely proud of what they had achieved.
“When we got it, it was a case of you do it right,” he said. “We’ve got an old girl, but she’s fully insulated, plus there’s a Rinnai Pro Series heating and air conditioning system. The climate control is second to none,” Murray said last year.
“We put on a new roof, we re-levelled the house, we’ve done basically everything it needs to last another 100 years.”
The whole renovation was documented on Murray’s Instagram page Cambridge Villa NZ, and caught the interest of many locals.
Murray told OneRoof last month that he was surprised his former home was back on the market.
The ex-rower is in the final stages of his new renovation project, which is just a few streets away from his old home. “I bought a 1950s house that was run-down and needed a lot of TLC. We’ve been nutting away on the inside, and it’s about 90% finished. Just a few bits to paint,” he said.
“The property is a cross-lease title, but we arranged with the neighbour to split it into two freeholds. They were up for it.”
Murray said he missed the Victoria Street home. “I don’t go into these to sell them off for profit. It was a beautiful house, beautiful location. Everything about it was amazing. It could even be upgraded. Add a pool, take it to another level. But circumstances change, and that’s why we’re here,” he said.
Murray said the Victoria Street home had many advantages. “It’s right bang smack in the middle of town. It stands out like dogs’ balls. Especially down that street coming into Cambridge, you look left and go, ‘Oh wow, look at that villa’.
“When we originally took it, it was hidden behind a lot of trees. We just went, you know what, we’re going to show off the beauty of this old girl. And that’s what happened.”