SCHOOL ZONES:
Browns Bay School, Rangitoto College.
CONTACT:
John Hill, Harcourts, ph 021 688608.
AUCTION:
March 29.
What you see is what you get and here you see everything," says architect Roger Langley of the multi-level home he designed for his family 45 years ago.
Back in 1970 when Roger and his wife Helen bought this site with its street-side bach, "everything" included quails and rabbits and the odd house taking shape on the hills towards Browns Bay.
By the mid 1970s the Langleys had built their lofty, modular timber home and it is those timeless exposed beams and high ceilings visible through all its levels that still delight them today.
"This was a design that wasn't about asking anything more of the house than what we could afford at that stage of our lives," says Roger, who was a newly qualified architect back then.
"One of the things we like is the fact that the house has such a good connection with the site. When the sun moves round, the whole valley glows with a golden hue."
This house unfolds over four half-levels with a central open-tread staircase beneath an A-frame roof line. The bedrooms are located in the corners for a wide outlook.
The day room/dining room with its popular bay window seat and the formal lounge open off opposite sides of the kitchen, with separate doors linking each to the rear deck.
Downstairs is Helen's multi-purpose art studio/office/garden room. In keeping with Roger's belief that every feature should justify its existence, he designed the separate kitchen pantry as a goods lift down to the double garage.
Image 1 of 4: Functionality was key in the design of this elevated and light-filled house, which has stood the test of time
"The north-facing location made the design process very straightforward," says Roger, now a director of van Veenendaal Rosnell Langley Architects. "We decided the kitchen should be in the middle and the rest fell into place. There is not a dark room in the entire house."
Style-wise, he says that the house is unpretentious. "It is what it is. You can see the beams and you can see the connections between the rooms. It isn't one of those houses that need devices or decorations to make it work. It's not what I'd call a decorated house."
Helen hung and painted the textured wallpaper throughout the house and she describes it as "an interesting house. It's certainly not a bland house. It has colour and the wood gives it warmth."
Its pitched ceilings are natural Douglas fir, the joinery is cedar with rimu frames and the kitchen cabinetry solid timber with tawa veneer. The stained cedar weatherboards, kwila deck and balustrades in silvered finger-jointed pine above panels of safety glass tie the timber connection together from the outside.
Roger project managed the build from their bach where they were living. "I learned how to build a house," he says. "I was the gaffer and it was really good." He points up to the central ceiling beam where the handwritten name "Jones" is still visible. He remembers heading out to the timber merchants in his Morris 1300 to bring back the 3m long beam for the builders. "Architects never finish things and I never got round to sanding that writing off. Besides ... it is high up."
More recently, Roger drew up plans to extend the living area and the rear deck with a pavilion-style alteration that still retains the original roof shape. "I would still really like to see it done in the same age of the house," he says.
But all of that is now for another owner to address as Roger and Helen turn their attention to upgrading a smaller home they own in Milford with the vision they applied to this property.
