DRIVE-IN SITTING ROOM

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31440, 5 August 1967, Page 16

DRIVE-IN SITTING ROOM

The $60,000 home of Mrs F. A. Morris at Castor Bay, Auckland, has the woman’s touch about it.

For who but a woman would put the car in the lounge? The passer-by may blink and look again. But it doesn’t go away.

There, standing on the carpet and surrounded by a three-piece suite is a sparkling red car taking pride of place in the middle of the room.

“I still call it the garage,” said Mrs Morris, a 75-year-old widow who designed the nineroom house in Castor Bay road.

The room, she explained, Started put just as an ordinary carport.

“But it was draughty and leaves kept swishing in so I decided to fit sliding glass doors,” she said. “Then the room looked a bit barren with just the car

—you could put a State house in it—so I decided to do it up and make it into a nice sun lounge,” she said. “I have all my meals there.” “Do it up” is hardly the phrase to describe a room which looks as though it has sprung straight from the pages of an interior decorator’s glossy magazine. Paintings line the walls, expensive drapes adorn the windows and, of course, there is

special hardwearing carpet for the car. The car is perfectly housetrained and never drips oil. Does she actually drive it? “Oh, yes,” said Mrs Morris. “I’ve had a licence for 50 years.”

The photograph shows Mrs Morris (left) relaxing in the sun lounge with a friend. Miss E. Allen.