Buried treasure in Ramarama

95 Hillview Rd, Ramarama, Auckland. Photo / Geoff Dale

295 HILLVIEW RD RAMARAMA

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SIZE: Land 8.89ha, house 468sq m (approx).

PRICE INDICATION: CV $2.43 million. Price by negotiation.

INSPECT: By appointment.

ON THE WEB: www.harcourts.co.nz/PQ100901

SCHOOL ZONES: Ramarama Primary School, Pukekohe High School.

CONTACT: Lynn Lockhart, Harcourts Papakura, ph 027 535 4024.

FEATURES: 1970s cedar Claude Megson home immaculately extended and renovated in 2001, set in park-like gardens. Outdoor living with pool and barbecue area. Beautifully landscaped gardens include established trees with thoughtful underplanting for year-round colour, streams and swimming hole. Two commercial glasshouses, large barn, garden sheds, plus deep-well bore and bio-cycle septic system.

A beautifully designed house is a treasure in itself. A beautifully designed house with equally exquisite gardens is an even rarer treasure, particularly when it is sited in pretty rolling countryside 30 minutes from Auckland. This is what Brian Maltby and his late wife Sue created in 2001 when they restored a somewhat run-down country property, Pukewhau, on the border of Ramarama and Bombay.

The couple recognised the quality of the house and garden when they found the very tired 1970s house with its very unwelcoming entrances. Brian had spied the greenhouses for commercial grape growing; Sue fell in love with the potential of the garden, framed with mature native and exotic trees and edged with pretty streams.

Brian, as a quantity surveyor, knew the building was a good example of early modern architect Claude Megson's work, even though it needed some work.

The couple called on their friend, architect Simon Carnachan, to help remodel and restore the house. Carnachan was a protege of Megson's and is trustee of the Claude Megson Trust, so could interpret the master's work for modern living nearly 30 years on.

The core of the house remains the same, but by reconfiguring the back and front entrances, and adding a self-contained guest suite, the couple immediately had a more welcoming space for visits from their grown family and a steady stream of guests. To the just-discernable bones of brick and railway sleeper terraces, Brian worked with landscapers to create a series of outdoor rooms: some private for guests to relax, completely rebuilding around the pool to create more convivial connections with the kitchen and dining room. Carnachan gutted three tiny 70s-style bedrooms and popped out a bay window to create a generous master suite, while leaving a smaller double room as the mezzanine over the dining room. But the biggest change was the addition of an entire wing, housing a living room downstairs and master bedroom upstairs, with built-in storage for TV and fireplace in the living room. With detailing such as Megson-style slot windows to frame tiny glimpses of view or a carefully lit upstairs balcony, it is hard to tell where one architect's work ends and the other begins. The old living room with its sunken pit was reconfigured into a dining room, cosy next to the fire for winter meals, while summer dining happens on the terrace with built-in fire/barbecue off the new living wing or in various spots around the garden. The couple cleaned up the dark timber interior with white, retaining timber where they could. They carefully copied the original tawa joinery in the completely remodelled kitchen (and in the guest suite's kitchenette). The house was rewired, modern security installed, but the look and feel of the building is still original Megson.

In the garden Sue and Brian extended and expanded, cleaning out ponds, adding an orchard and potager, underplanting native and exotic plants for all-year colour. Until Sue got sick, the couple hosted an annual fundraising concert for the Auckland Youth Orchestra. Brian has added barns and sheds for his diggers and, although he no longer grow grapes, still runs white Galloway cattle and some sheep.

He relishes his proximity to the city but now that Sue has gone, realises the house needs a family who can enjoy the house and garden they so lovingly restored together.