Remuera: Vertical challenge

A designer has built his dream home but sadly can't afford to move into it, writes Wendy Colville

25a Hapua Street, Remuera. David Ponting has spent three years imagining, planning and designing his dream home - only to complete it and put it on the market.

"It's everything I wanted, except for the budget," he says. Realising the dream has been an expensive exercise.

"We could stay here but it would mean we couldn't afford the price of a coffee," he says of the home he calls a modern treehouse. Reluctantly, he and wife Jennifer are selling up before moving in. Still, the house is a showcase of his ideas and this weekend the couple are opening it up to view, before the marketing starts in earnest.

David runs his own architecture practice, even though he never quite finished his architecture degree. As an architectural draughtsman he was swamped with work, and has gone on to set up a practice with over a hundred homes in his portfolio. This home represents his most personal design principles.

"My philosophy is always to engage with the landscape. It's a dramatic site, which is very steep, with stunning views of Rangitoto and the harbour. In New Zealand we tend to think horizontally, because we have so much land, and a big horizon. Yet, here I was working vertically because of the steepness of the site. I had to turn that into a positive and the architecture had to be a dramatic response to the landscape."

The verticals are certainly dramatic.

At the entrance to the property you are met by 4m concrete retaining walls, and the house soars above these in a series of offset rectangles. The house rises over three levels, all with birds-eye views of the Hauraki Gulf.

"The house is intended to float silently over the site and I've designed it to be open to the best elements of the environment," David explains. "To achieve that floating feeling, one level of the house is cantilevered over the site - rather a challenging architectural and engineering feat," he says.

The external walls are clad in cedar, the handrails are made of randomly fixed battens like the branches of a tree, and the high walls and elevation of the property all add to the impression David set out to create of a modern treehouse, secure and in its own private world.

Three years of dreaming and planning meant David paid special attention to details. The windows in the master bedroom are designed to frame the harbour view perfectly when sitting in bed but also exclude views of the homes below the house.

"Architecture is all about creating the environment you want. You accentuate the positive: in this case the harbour views and the sun, and you redefine your world as you experience it," he says.

Then there's the stairwell which leads you up the hill from the second to third level.

"I wanted to create the experience of travelling up the hill where you don't focus so much on the climb but on the landscape and the architecture."

So, this stairwell has the feeling of still being outside. External cladding has been used on one wall and the vast windows at either end frame views of the bush-clad slopes and sky.

Luxurious touches include wall cladding made of burnished copper on one wall of the stairwell, and copper cladding on the garage doors.

"At a certain point I realised we could compromise on the materials and build a cheaper house, but in the end I couldn't do that."

Vital Statistics

SIZE: Land 630sq m, house 240sq m plus decks.

PRICE GUIDE: $1.595 million.

INSPECT: This weekend Sat/Sun 11am-noon, Mon 5-6 pm; thereafter Sat/Sun 11am-11.45am.

CONTACT: Stephanie Kelland, Kelland's Real Estate, ph 021 544 734.

FEATURES: New three-level home designed as a modern treehouse, with spectacular views of Rangitoto and the Hauraki Gulf. Two living areas, and most rooms north-facing. Floors in Tasmanian oak, burnished copper cladding used on garage doors, and stairwell. Separate teenagers' level of two bedrooms, lounge and bathroom.