North Adelaide home set to break the record
This historic home on the city’s tightly held fringe is expected to break the state’s residential record to sell for more than $15.5 million.
Once you step through the gates of this North Adelaide home you could be anywhere in the world.
A chateau in the French countryside. A villa in Tuscany.
Instead, 70 Pennington Terrace is right on the tightly held doorstep of Adelaide’s CBD.
“It’s nothing that I’ve ever seen in Adelaide before,” says Amanda, who purchased the property with her husband David in 2020.
“It’s got a sense of another place.”
Amanda and David weren’t in the market for something so spacious on more than 2300 square metres, in fact, they were actually looking to downsize.
But when the opportunity to acquire the one-of-a-kind property presented itself, they knew they couldn’t pass it up.
“To have something on this scale, in this location, was something we knew could never be repeated,” Amanda says.
“I hadn’t been inside the property at that point but I loved the character from the outside and I loved the fact that it really is a private sanctuary.”
The home was built in 1927 by prominent Adelaide residential architect Guy St John Mankin and has since featured in a number of national and international publications.
Amanda, who has renovated homes before, wanted to put her own touch on the historic property while preserving its old-world charm.
“I love old homes, I love the character, I love the romance,” she says.
“I could just see the potential of this place, and what I could do to make it really unique.
“Whilst it is an old character home, my style is quite contemporary, so I’ve tried to blend the traditional with the modern.”
The renovation wasn’t drastic, it was just about elevating what was already there and blending Amanda’s extremely contemporary personal style with the charm of a bygone era.
The property features five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a commercial kitchen, a pool, a wine cellar and a fully independent guest house encompassed by expansive gardens on approximately 2373 square metres.
Amanda says the biggest challenge was the sheer scale of the rooms and how to add warmth to the vast spaces, particularly in the kitchen, living and dining, which she feels is the most impactful part of the home with 4.5 metre ceilings and striking arch windows.
“I wanted to create, in that room, lots of different spaces within a vast space,” she says.
“So, you could sit on an occasional chair, you could sit on the couch, you could sit at the dining table, you could sit on stools that look out to the garden.
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“Walking into the space that was bare and the enormity of it, it was about how to create a warm inviting feel.
“I feel like we have really nailed that.”
Using layering and texture such as rugs and linen curtains add that warmth and create different zones.
The home already had an abundance of antique detailing – architectural mouldings, vintage chandeliers and arch windows imported from France – and the addition of modern fixtures and Amanda’s contemporary art collection walks that line of old and new.
The garden is a statement in itself and Amanda, who is now downsizing to a lower maintenance property, says this is something she will miss most.
“I love every day looking out at my garden because I feel like I’m in the botanic gardens,” she says.
And like the botanic gardens, this one is broken up into many smaller areas.
There’s a cobblestoned driveway and a large verandah with pillars and ceilings covered in creeping vine, which Amanda says was cut from the original garden.
Vast lawns with meticulously topiarised hedges which were the backdrop to both of Amanda’s children’s weddings.
A courtyard featuring a lap pool that looks more like a fountain, in keeping with the style of the home.
“I’d love to see kids in this house, just running around in that garden, it needs that now,” Amanda says.
“What is behind those walls, nobody ever really gets to see.
“I’ll never have this again, I know that and I feel very privileged to have had it and to have enjoyed it for these years.”
The sale of 70 Pennington Terrace, North Adelaide, is being handled by Jamie Brown of Booth Real Estate.
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