A bold mural creates a unique identity for a small, inner city block of flats. Julie Jacobson meets the people who live there.
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THE BACK story to this tale begins with a grey-muzzled mutt, named after one of the sexiest men in movie history.
Balenciaga Replica HandbagsBogart, a big loveable Doberman- cross, lived at No 15 Frederick St for most of his 16 3/4 years. He was, from all accounts, a dog with personality.
Bogart died in 2005. Years on he still has a presence in the narrow, one-way thoroughfare between two of downtown Wellington's busiest roads - Taranaki and Tory streets _ immortalised in tiles on the outside of his former home.
No 15 is one of four flats in what was, until 1993, an old warehouse. It is owned by Bogart's owner, Wellington architect Gus Watt, the man behind the apartment conversion. Each unit has an open- plan living area, split mezzanine floors, three bedrooms, and a clerestory roof. A mural painted across the top of the building is an extension of the tiling on the lower level.
Watt is the last of the original owners. Now living in Sorrento Bay - where Bogart's ashes have been plastered into a mosaic on another wall - he remembers the street, part of the city's original "Chinatown", as an industrial wasteland, where the only other residents aside from those in his block were the V8 boys. Now 80 per cent of the street is residential.
Stephanie and Dominic Price, No 13
There are pots of bright red geraniums on Stephanie Price's balcony. The plants are presents from her Christchurch- based mum, who helped her daughter move into the apartment just before Christmas. Stephanie, a teacher-turned business manager, came to Wellington from Dunedin, for work. Husband Garry is still down south, in the throes of sorting out houses and a job, as is eldest daughter Alex, 22. Almost 17-year-old Dominic, their youngest, moved up with mum, hoping to start at Weltec in the new term, while middle daughter Rebecca, 19, is in the process of moving back home after a year living in student digs, just around the corner.
"We were looking for a three bedroom home," says Stephanie. "I wanted to be close to town so I could walk to work. I looked at quite a few places in Brooklyn, and in Mt Vic, and Wadestown. Most of them were disgusting or way off the beaten track, and then I saw this on Trade Me. As soon as I walked in it was definitely somewhere I could see us living."
Stephanie left a big, old house, and garden in Dunedin. She's just potted up some herbs and sown some lettuce seeds. They're on the balcony too. "We sold a lot of stuff. It was a case of deciding what we really wanted to keep and then selling the rest, but apart from the rain on the inside for a couple of weekends [the block is being re-roofed], it's been fantastic. I walk down to the markets at Te Papa on Sundays, and there's The Warehouse at one end of the street and Briscoes at the other."
Raymond Weil Replica WatchesNo 13 is owned by Graeme Harrington and Vivianne Murphy. Harrington's Harley Dyna Wide Glide was inspiration for the tilework - James Dean on a Hog, complete with flashing indicators - outside. The couple, who lived in Frederick St for eight years, now live in Whanganui, where Murphy is principal at Whanganui Girls' College. Their long-term plans include returning to Frederick St.
John Crawford and Jude Wood, No 15
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