Braemar House

The smells of the house reminded me of my friend’s flat in Cardiff – a lived-in, lingering kind like its walls have been stepped in all sorts of flavours and scents.

But there was something else – my nose detected a whiff of Malaysian curry spices. Hmm, I wondered where that came from?

I was after all checking into a B&B in Auckland, recommended by a local friend – Braemar, a late Victorian house built in 1901, now converted into housing travellers like me, looking for a home away from home and yet not really wanting to be home – and the last thing I expected at this time of the night was the smells of my mother’s cooking.

Turned out Jackie, the “chef-cum-caretaker”, is a Malaysian from Kuala Lumpur. Formerly executive chef at Auckland University, she’s taken on the reins at Braemar, and Jackie loves to cook, and sing, at the same time and each morning, music and spices would waft up to my suite.

John Sweetman in his man-cave studio

Braemar is owned by John Sweetman, aptly named because, when not playing lord of the manor, earns his living sweet-talking on the radio. A long time ago, John was the voice behind New Zealand’s Top 40 but when radio got too commercial – “when ratings told you what to play” – he found another career in voice-over work and today still helms a show on a local station, The Sound. 

So John loves his music too – he is partial to rock and one of the souvenirs he proudly shows me is a radio replica from the movie “The Boat That Rocked”. He identifies obviously with the movie about a pirate radio station in the 1960s that ran afoul of authorities and the cast of characters that called the boat their home.

John calls Braemar home now because, about a decade or so ago, when what is the only late Victorian townhouse in the Auckland Central Business District came onto the market, he couldn’t bear to see it demolished or converted into something modern.

“I wanted to save it and see if I could build up something with it, to find a way for the house to pay for itself,” he said.

So, over 10 years, he and his wife poured their life savings, energy and resources into restoring it and building a B&B business out of the three-storey house.

The Lounge

There are four guest rooms, all on the first floor, one of which is the Batten suite I took – it has a parlour with a fireplace, a generous-size bathroom, so plenty of private space to lounge about in. The rest share a common, spacious bathroom. Actually there’s lots of space in the house and when I was there, there was only one other guest – a Chinese student from Guangzhou here to check out education opportunities in Auckland – and it felt like I had the whole house to myself, with John and Jackie for company. 

There’s the dining room next to the kitchen where Jackie prepares breakfast. One morning, I had fried eggs with Malaysian sambal which nearly rendered my tongue numb. I think Jackie misses her spices and so uses lots of it. 

Fried eggs with Malaysian sambal

There’s a lounge  which can serve as a meeting room and that’s a business John would like to build up – he would like to see more business travellers stay at Braemar – executives who visit Auckland frequently and want something other than the usual hotel.

“We’ve got wifi, we have the facilities, we’ve got a great location and we offer something unique, something different,” says John. “This is a house with a story.”

You certainly feel it and you also hear it from John who, after all, is a born story-teller. What I like about it, other than the homely feel, is its location on Parliament Street, a beautiful tree-lined road – you can just about walk anywhere, whether to the Viaduct or downtown or any of the city ‘s parks. 

Armed with your own front door key, you’re pretty much on your own – coming and going as you like – and when you want, there’s company.

Parliament Street

It definitely feels different from staying in a modern hotel or apartment – you feel a sense of history and stronger connection to the roots of what makes Auckland the place that it is. 

You can tell Braemar is more of a labour of love for John than it is a business that will make anyone rich. What he wants is for the B&B business to help the house pay for itself. Meanwhile, he gets to live in the house, meet interesting people to share his story with and play his own music.

Currently, guests find Braemar online and most of them come from the UK, Australia and, as John calls them, Commonwealth-linked countries. These are the people who appreciate colonial houses. His bookings come from sites such as booking.com, Expedia and hotels.com, and increasingly TripAdvisor where it’s ranked 11^th out of 55 Auckland Central B&B and Inns and gets pretty good reviews.

“Without the Internet, it’d be hard for a place like ours to be found,” says John, admitting in the same breath that the Internet has also changed the radio business. Today, anyone can listen to radio from anywhere and anyone can start their own radio station.

“The only thing is because it’s so global, there’s a loss of the sense of place or community around a radio station. In the old days, local radio played a vital role in a community but now with streaming, you get music from anywhere, anytime.”

However, with mobile devices now, John believes there is an opportunity for radio to become local again, in a more personal way than ever before. For instance, we discussed the possibility of him starting his own radio station from Braemar where he could share his story, tales of travellers passing through, and unearth interesting anecdotes about places nearby.

“And imagine, you’d get to play the kind of music you’d like to play,” I say. “And you could call Braemar The House That Rocked.”

John laughs. “Now wouldn’t that be sweet?”