Jimmy and Denise Seed

PHOTO: VANESSA LAURIE/STUFF Jimmy and Denise Seed lived on site while they dreamed up, designed and built their current home, which has hit the market for $5.75m – a Taranaki record.

According to STUFF more than 40 years ago, Jimmy Seed built the first of many houses he and wife Denise have called home. Now, the Taranaki grandparents are selling what they say will be their last – for $5.75 million.

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The Seeds recently put their four-bedroom, coastal Taranaki home on the market, and should it go for asking price – or even $2m less – it will become the most expensive property to sell in the region.

But, the pair don’t care about that title. Probably because they had it once before in 2013, when they sold their Oakura home that Jimmy also built.

“We just hope someone will come and enjoy it, just like we have,” says Jimmy, who has been in the construction industry his entire working life.

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The Seeds, who have four children and 12 grandchildren, haven’t always been the owners of homes worth many times more than the average Kiwi could buy.

“Our families had nothing,” Denise, 63, says.

Their path to “something” began nearly 50 years ago when the pair met and became teenage sweethearts at New Plymouth’s Spotswood College.

Jimmy has built every house he and Denise have called home.
VANESSA LAURIE/STUFF
Jimmy has built every house he and Denise have called home.

Even while still at school Denise had a job, and Jimmy left high school to start a building apprenticeship in the years that followed.

They quickly got married, and Jimmy built their first home in Bell Block north of New Plymouth – in what was then a new subdivision – in 1978.

The pair have been working together on homes since their four children were little.
VANESSA LAURIE/STUFF
The pair have been working together on homes since their four children were little.

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