Tall Poppy Real Estate owner Andrew Berryman said the property was on the market for just two weeks, during which time it received nine offers before deadline.
“This has been my busiest-ever listing in nearly 10 years of real estate.
“Over 120 Tall Poppy digital leads have been received, there were 38 email inquiries from other websites, there were 15,070 unique website views and 26 groups viewed the property.”
The historic two-room wooden cottage on the edge of Deborah Bay has been in the same family for nearly 120 years, and was placed on the open market earlier this month.
The 7.3m x 3.7m cottage is believed to have been built in the 1880s, and was bought by William and Adelaide Lewis in 1906.
They raised their family of 17 there, on a diet of fish and rabbits.
The youngest sibling, Ernest “Mungo” Lewis, inherited the cottage in 1951 and was the last person to live there.
He was a popular local identity because he rejected modern comforts such as a telephone or electric stove, and the simplicity of his lifestyle was the subject of many newspaper articles and television programmes.
When he died in 2007, aged 83, the property passed to his nephews Mick and Keith Lewis and niece Mona Cromb (nee Lewis).
Now that the outside of the cottage had been refurbished, the time had come to sell the family property because the trio were all reaching their late 70s and early 80s, and it was getting harder to keep up with the maintenance, Mick Lewis said.
When the deadline was reached last Friday with nine offers, he had mixed feelings about the situation, he said.
“I’m pleased, but also a little sad. It’s a mixture of both.”
He said the nine offers had been shortlisted to four, and most of them were from people in the community.
“They’re people who will take it on as a historic building.
“They’re all on the same page — they all want to restore it to a historic building.”
He said he was pleased with the response from the community, and hoped the family would be able decide on which offer to take, by the end of this week.
Last week, he said the property might not go to the highest bidder.
Rather, it would go to the bidder who promised to treat it as a historic place for future generations to appreciate.
“It won’t be sold to anybody who we’re not comfortable with. It’s as simple as that.
“It’s an important part of the Otago Harbour. We understand that, and that’s why we’re so keen to protect its future.”
