By Goya Dmytryshchak
From its unassuming clinker-brick facade, there is little to suggest what lies behind the door of one of Altona’s quirkiest houses.
The Temple of Mood at 27 Bell Avenue, which is listed for auction, boasts a totally unique style.
It opens into a castle-style Grand Hall with iron chandeliers. There’s an Alice in Wonderland kitchen, complete with cast iron hot pink oven; a Moroccan-style master bedroom and main bathroom; an Enchanted Forest bedroom; a steampunk games room; a Harry Potter toilet; and an outdoor tiki bar and spa.
Vendors Luke and Annabel have tailored every detail to their tastes and they hope to find a buyer who will love the house as much as they do.
“It was already quite idiosyncratic,” Luke said. “The couple that we bought the place from were a German pirate and a Filipino princess, which is only a very slightly exaggerated description of them … as they said about the house, it’s a house of love, it’s a house that they love and it’s for people who love each other.
“It’s never been a very ordinary house – it’s always been spectacular.”
Luke said that before choosing Barlow McEwan Tribe, other real estate agents had almost uniformly advised them to tear everything down and make the house
“bland”.
Barlow McEwan Tribe’s Angus Scott-Walker said it was one of the more quirky houses he had come across in his life.
“This particular one has got so many themes in it,” he said.
“It’s going to attract a buyer who likes originality, and admittedly the current owners have put their personality into the property. But it would be somebody that, if they don’t like everything, they can modify and alter what they would like to, just as Luke and Annabel did originally when they bought this house. It’s a great property for entertaining.”
The price guide is $950,000-$1.045 million.
The house is listed for auction on Sunday, October 21, at 1.30pm.
