If Lutz Heutmann isn't at home when you call him his answerphone will play a charming rendition of Pokarekare Ana, played by Lutz on his Pan flute.
He has been playing for 30 years, and it's easy to imagine him standing on the deck of his home on the Coromandel, sending his sweet notes out across the Pacific Ocean.
"That's exactly what I do," he says.
Lutz discovered the Coromandel when he sold his B&B in Tauranga, bought a campervan and began touring around.
When Lutz bought it, he says, it had been cleared and looked like a moonscape.
Three years later, however, it is landscaped with retaining walls of big rocks, concrete paths and steps, and native planting, including flaxes which attract enough tui to compete with Lutz's pan flute.
He engaged a Swiss designer to design the house and gave him a fairly open brief -- a modern, minimalist building that would maximise the sea view.
Floor-to-ceiling glazing is usually the answer to that, and the joinery in this house includes 2.5m x 2m sliding doors, 7m commercial windows (all double glazed and tinted), low level sashes and vertical louvres.
It was a challenging job for the joinery company -- the cantilevered roof is tilted through two planes, and because of the size and weight of the windows, they had to be lifted into place by crane.
Image 1 of 5: Floor-to-ceiling glass, polished block and steel accentuate minimalist design principles and maximise ocean views in this striking cliff-top property
"When you are standing in the lounge, the view is one-third sea and two-thirds sky," Lutz says. The vista also encompasses offshore islands, a surf beach, and dolphins and whales.
Lutz is delighted with the finished house. It's north facing and protected on three sides from road visibility.
He got the strong, minimalist look he wanted, and the angled roof above two storeys of glass makes the house look, he says, "like an open eye".
On the ground floor is garaging for two cars and space for extra parking and turning -- rare commodities on a steep, waterfront site. There's also a laundry on this level. The mid level contains an open-plan living area, dining space and kitchen, two bedrooms and the main bathroom.
"I told her 'do what you like' and she did the whole house."
Against the backdrop of sealed, polished concrete walls, floor-to-ceiling glass and polished floor, is a palette of off-white, lime and shades of slate for the furnishings, with opaque glass-fronted cabinets, a stainless steel sink bench and a black counter top in the kitchen.
Oversized lime tiles line the kitchen wall behind it. Lutz enjoys cooking here, 70m above the ocean, and boasts gently about the German strawberry cakes he makes.
He has been in New Zealand for 18 years, but Europe is exerting its pull. Having one son in Germany and another in Sweden is stiff competition for what Lutz describes as "a very special, most interesting house".
