After years of successful property investment, Adrian Burr can afford a bit of extravagance these days.
And to prove that, the 75-year-old recently bought not one but two self-playing Steinway Spirio pianos – one for his Herne Bay home in Auckland and another for a property in Hawke’s Bay.
The Spiro is the most expensive piano on the market in New Zealand, with two different models priced at $225,000 and $270,000.
To put that in perspective, a brand new one-bedroom home in Hamilton can be bought for $225,000. Likewise, a second-hand 2014 V8 McLaren Spider is about the same price.
Not that Burr needs another car. He reportedly recently bought a new Eurocopter EC135 which, not unlike the Spiro, is capable of self-flying, under instrument flight rules (IFR).
He’s understood to be the only Kiwi to own the new model.
The new chopper should come in handy for Burr in commuting to and from Hawke’s Bay (in 2016 he installed a heliport on his Cremorne St section).
He and associate Mark Taylor head companies that own four properties on the country’s most expensive street but his property assets worth more than $1 billion stretch from the deep south to the top of the north and across the Tasman.
Burr has been an influential property investor for more than three decades, bursting on to the scene in the early 1980s with Chase, then buying up key Newmarket, CBD waterfront, carparking buildings and later forestry estates.
He has undoubtedly benefited from the property market’s continued surge and these days has been taking a more philanthropic style to investment.
A good example is the uptake of government social bonds through his Prospect Investment Management company, which participated alongside philanthropic fund Wilberforce Foundation and Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen-Cilag.
Burr is the founding director of Auckland’s School for Performing and Creative Arts and a generous philanthropist.
He also likes the occasional punt on the horses and once co-owned the 1998 Melbourne Cup winner Jezabeel.
Photo: Norrie Montgomery