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*Off-street parking for five-plus.
Good design deserves a good home. What is more exciting is when a pair of architects find a good design and collaborate to make it even better.
That was the case when architect Rod Marler and his wife, event manager Fiona, bought a house and studio seven years ago that had been built by renowned industrial designer Peter Haythornthwaite.
One of the champions of the Better by Design group, Haythornthwaite had taken advantage of the heritage zoning of the street that allows mixed commercial and residential to build his workshop, showroom and office there in 1989.
But by the time Fiona and Rod bought the property, it had been subdivided into multiple offices, and was no longer residential.
"Peter had designed this in the Massachusetts salt box style, two barns sitting side by side sheathed in cedar. It was a meticulous, engineered solution, very functional," says Rod.
"We liked the volume, the simplicity, the Japanese/Scandinavian/industrial feel, but the challenge was to make it home-like. We lived here for two years with his-and-hers office bathrooms and tiny kitchenette while we got a feel for it."
The couple had previously done up a classic villa in Cheltenham, complete with elaborate gardens, so were looking for something stripped back to house their growing collection of mid-century furniture.
In the meantime, they created the garden around the mature trees on the property, adding a wall of clipped hedge, surrounded by raked granite to reflect the light -- more of that simple Euro-meets-Japanese landscaping that was easy-care enough to free up the couple to indulge in their love of sailing.
Then they were ready to commission architect Malcolm Walker to help them make sense of the floor plan.
"He doesn't have 'a look', he's very sensitive to listening to clients and unlocking the potential," says Rod. "We puzzled and puzzled, but Malcolm solved the Rubik's cube."
The solution shows the power of good design -- so elegantly obvious it doesn't seem hard -- but Walker's approach transformed how the house is used. Key to the redesign was opening up a dark enclosed hallway and staircase off the entry atrium, removing a rabbit-warren of cupboards and doors and replacing it with a wide opening to the sun-filled living room and up to the upper floors. Walker's masterstroke was adding a first-floor bathroom and a second-floor glass tower above the original bathrooms.
This top floor of the tower -- a belvedere in architect-speak -- has all four walls of glass (with enough opening windows and overhang to protect from summer sun) to pour light down the stairwell to create an inviting core to the house. Walker also replaced solid stairwell walls with white painted timber slats, sheathed the entry wall and living room ceiling in precision-joined oiled cedar slats and added a hefty front door in torrified ash.
Rod lauds the builders, appropriately called Precision Construction, for their masterful work.
Walker also pushed up old 90s-style curved ceilings with sleek dormers in the master and second bedrooms to create room for a glowing master en suite and good second bedroom, opening to the new family bathroom in the tower.
A third bedroom on this floor shares the light from the entry atrium.
The tower is a special spot for the sea-loving Marlers as it has views of water from all four sides, as well as Rangitoto, the Waitakeres, even Coromandel and distant islands on a good day.
On the ground floor, Walker again pushed up the curved lean-to ceiling on the sunny northwest corner to a flat roof, adding clerestory windows and walls of sliding glass to bring in the light and the outdoors.
A louvre-roofed dining deck completes the outdoor living in the summer. The kitchen is another masterpiece, with a butler's pantry and another glass-fronted china pantry, but focused on the table-like island -- a terrific piece of furniture that complements the couple's mid-century pieces and is used for casual meals. More formal dining is in the concrete floored atrium/hall, resembling the medieval great hall. Rod uses a fourth bedroom off this entry as his home office.
The Marlers also worked on the underpinnings of the house, redoing lighting (all from ECC), plumbing (mostly Philippe Starck fittings), redoing upper-floor deck membranes, replacing louvre windows with cedar and refitting upstairs doors and windows with double-glazing as well as refinishing wood floors in tobacco stain, adding sisal carpets and painting in a warm antique white.
The two-storeyed barn next door, used by Fiona and another company, just needed re-decorating.
But the couple are now hungry to find another mid-century house to work the same design transformation on so are selling. Design fans will be lining up.
