PHOTO: JANE USSHER/NZ HOUSE AND GARDEN.
Jacqui and Graham Nelson are used to travellers knocking on their mustard-coloured front door. That’s because their two-storey villa was a popular Wellington hostel for 40 years. “Just last week we had to turn away an Argentinian backpacker,” says Jacqui.
The couple raised their twin boys and two daughters on a lifestyle property on the Kapiti Coast. But the kids had left home and Jacqui wanted to be closer to work – as GM Operations for Contact Energy she travels frequently and had grown tired of rising at 4am to drive to the airport – so they started scouring real estate listings. Inner-city Mt Victoria appealed, because of its north-facing sunny aspect, and in 2012 they managed to wrest the 1890 property away from four other keen buyers.
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