It's a wonder the two red leather swivel chairs in Jim and Lorraine McChesney's sitting room aren't worn out. The two of them sit there to enjoy the sunsets, see the weather coming in, look at the Sky Tower and the Bombays, and follow the gliders far below.
Views are everything at this Drury property, appropriately named High View. Lorraine thought they'd take the expansive view for granted, but that hasn't been the case, and just as well, since they went to a lot of effort to secure this site.
"We sold 15 acres at Karaka because we wanted less land and a new project," Lorraine explains. "We had lived next door to the owners of this land and we asked if we could buy it, but the owner said he had promised it to his son. Five years later we still hadn't found anything we liked so I said to Jim, 'let's ask again'."
The owner's son did want to sell and Lorraine and Jim couldn't believe their luck. They commissioned Malcolm Glasgow to design the house and were impressed that he came often to absorb the setting. They wanted a large house with spacious rooms and a separate guest wing. They call the area The Loft, but it hasn't been used for guests as often as they expected. "There has been one or the other of our kids there for quite long periods of time," Lorraine says.
