An historic villa in Auckland is auctioning off a number of artworks tonight, in an attempt to raise money to help secure its future.
Hum Salon's tenants were almost removed from the house last month, after a High Court judge ruled they had until the end of October to pay back-rent dating from February this year.
Rosy Armitage,who spearheads Hum Salon through the Falling Apple Charitable Trust, says a last-minute interest-free loan from an anonymous backer bought the charity more time, but there is plenty of work remaining if they are to continue their project of doing up the old house.
The auction will be run by Thornton Auctions and will feature works by Steve Hikaiti, Yaniv Janson and Evelyn Page, among others.
Ms Armitage says the proceeds will go "to secure the heritage villa and to fundraise to further its development and to secure the community's place at the villa".
One of the artists contributing works to the auction is Flox, real name Hayley King, who helped paint the side of the villa "many moons ago".
"I'm all about it so I was quite happy to help out," she says. "It sounds like they're in need again and I think it's a good cause."
She will be donating a stencil art work called "Bird of Paradise", which was designed especially for the TV show The Block. The 1.7m circular work features a waxeye and a tui and is "very fruity and a bit kiwiana".
The artist was also given an antique saw blade which she has "floxed up" for the auction.
Ms Armitage says the charity doesn’t have a specific figure in mind in terms of how much they want to raise.
"We are not setting a target on it - we [just] want to let people have a good time."
The Grafton property has faced financial difficulties recently with the tenants embroiled in a dispute with the building's owner, Shen Tat Ooi.
The two parties signed a deal in January 2011 which gave Hum three years' rent free on the condition they did certain repairs to house but the owner claims the renovations have so far been sub-par and wants the tenants gone.
Hum, however, says the original agreement was signed on the belief that structural work completed on the house before they moved in – which had been given a code of compliance – had been done correctly. Ms Armitage says the charity later discovered this work hadn't been done to standard, meaning the house never had a chance to be made into a commercial property as stipulated in the original tenancy agreement.
She says the charity is awaiting an independent report on the property before deciding whether legal action will be required over the alleged faulty code of compliance.
The auction will take place tonight at the Hum Salon in Grafton. It is invite only but works on sale can be viewed online with the charity also accepting bids by email before the event.
3 News
source: newshub archive
