SCHOOL ZONES:
Victoria Avenue School, Remuera Intermediate, Epsom Girls' Grammar, Auckland Grammar.
CONTACT:
Steve Koerber or Sam Durkin, Barfoot & Thompson Remuera, ph 524 0149, Steve, ph 021 864 166, Sam, ph 0275 066 022.
FEATURES:
Adams Dodd 1969 split-level home on charming cul-de-sac near Arney Rd with all original features intact. Plenty of built-in storage, original kitchen and bathrooms. Casual and formal living opening to courtyards or valley views. Generous ground-floor workshop/utility room with potential for rumpus/media room.
There once was a time - sadly, not so long ago - when any 1960s house on a generous section in the right suburbs was merely an invitation to demolish and build a look-at-me McMansion. Fortunately, such houses are as sought-after in the world of architecture as vintage Hermes bagsin the fashion world.
In 1969, Philip and Prue Wrightson briefed architects Roland Adams and Brian Dodd, the young Dunedin partners who had won a competition for their design of the University of Otago library and were building up a fashionable practice in Auckland.
The Wrightsons had recently been forced to sell their Gummer Ford home in Epsom for road widening. "My parents looked at houses for a long time and just never found anything they liked. Finally my mother said 'I want to build again'," recalls their daughter, Amala.
"They used to take me to their meetings with the architect, and I remember a young George Paterson going through the plans with them." (Paterson, then an associate, was the administrator for the building contract, but says Dodd was the architect). "I remember them going through several designs before they chose this one. They wanted to make the most of the site, not have the house spreading too far down the land."
Forty-two years later, the house is as appealing and welcoming as it was the day it was built, in a bush-lined street carved off the old Nathan homestead on Arney Rd. It is compactly pushed to the front of the section, with a private northwest facing courtyard carved out of the slope at the front and Adams Dodd's signature"outrigger" balconies on the eastern, bush-facing back of the house.
The flat roofs and blocked massing of the house gives it an appealing street frontage: visitors are welcomed past the double carport at street level, down wide steps to an imposing front door. The entry lobby sets the Japanese-meets-70s tone of the property, with the beautifully preserved rimu stairwell, doors and window joinery contrasting with the white walls. Stained glass clerestory windows at the top of the stairwell create a golden glow.
The living room was extended by the Wrightsons after they moved in, without spoiling the pleasing proportions of the room with its concrete block and plastered walls and French doors opening to the sunny courtyard. A log fire keeps the house cosy in winter, while in summer the doors are open all day.
The kitchen is original, right down to its rimu cabinets, servery/bar and - innovative for the time - integrated handles. With its sewing cupboard (today it would be for the computer) and walls of bookshelves, plus views through the trees down the valley and up to Remuera ridge, it was her parents' favourite room, says Amala.
At the bottom of the garden, Amala was delighted to discover the remnants of the Japanese garden planted by the Nathan family, complete with stone pagodas and a tiny bridge.
The hours of planning that Amala remembers resulted in a well-detailed house. A split level down from the entrance is the master bedroom, a bathroom and the fourth room which Philip, a neurosurgeon, used as his study. The lower ground floor has an enormous laundry and workshop, but would easily be converted to a modern media or rumpus room.
Upstairs are the two further bedrooms with the second bathroom.
But with Philip and Prue now gone, it is time to sell the family home to the next generation of architecture-lovers who will understand and appreciate this gem.
