The perfect perch on a hill

8B Willis Avenue, Pukekohe home. Photo / Fiona Goodall

8B WILLIS ST PUKEKOHE

5

3

3

SIZE: Land 574sq m, house approx 317sq m.

PRICE INDICATION: $900,000-plus.

INSPECT: Sat/Sun 2.30-3.30pm.

ON THE WEB: bayleys.co.nz/1970213

SCHOOL ZONES: Pukekohe Hill Primary, Pukekohe Intermediate and High School.

CONTACT: Mark Fourie and Paul Meyer, Bayleys, 021 349 530 (Mark), 021 935 859 (Paul).

AUCTION: July 14.

For several years, Carola and Adrian Healy and their builder found themselves coming together as a sort of unofficial neighbourhood watch group.

They met when Carola and Adrian were planning an extensive renovation to their 1940/1950s brick and tile home that sat in the middle of its quarter acre perch they bought around 2003. When their builder suggested they should build a new house at the back instead, they set about subdividing the site. The builder bought the front plot and built a new home at the same time, spearheading a modest renovation on their middle home to ready it for sale. Then he headed up the driveway to build their new home on the rear, most elevated portion of what was once a chicken farm in onion-growing country.

Amid the formalities, talk around the Healy's dining table turned to their respective visions for their individual sites. They talked rooflines, eaves, exterior plaster over brick and concrete Hebel cladding, stone accents, front door designs and paint colour options. They covered all the exterior detail because each of them wanted the transformation of this right-of-way with its rural backdrop and urban outlook to have a handsome outcome.

The resulting homes are proof that such a subdivision doesn't have to be met with a cookie cutter design response. Unified from the outside, each house has its own floor plan and its own story. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the two-storey home that Carola and Adrian designed for their blended family of six children, and built six years ago.

This was their first new-home build and their fourth home together and their priorities were for open-plan living, outdoor living, solar water heating and underfloor water heating.

They have achieved it with living areas, bedrooms and bathrooms on both levels and a sweeping wrought-iron staircase linking the two. Decks off their lounge and their master bedroom take in views beyond Pukekohe to Manukau City and the Sky Tower in the distance. A sheltered courtyard near their dining area is accessible from one of the guest bedrooms, too.

Image 1 of 8: 300615 NZH Homes 8B Willis Avenue, Pukekohe home of Carola Healy and husband Adrian. Photo: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

But it was the pivotal location and fit-out of the kitchen that required the most thought, helped by Carola and Adrian's ability to translate architectural drawings into spatial reality ahead of construction. They wanted detail, elegance and authenticity in their kitchen because of its first view at the top of the stairs and, in formulating her brief, Carola sought inspiration from magazines, including those of English country lifestyles. The traditional style of this kitchen is enhanced by the symmetry created by the over mantel rangehood and the staggered, rather than flush, placement of glass and panelled cabinetry. Beneath the engineered stone island benchtop, the corbels add another touch to the sense of this kitchen, having been crafted as furniture rather than just a series of functional elements.

Elsewhere it is the deep cornices, tongue-and-groove interior doors and complementary furniture that tie this home to that vision. Says Carola: "I love interiors and Adrian is very good at everything else."

An automotive specialist with a mechanical background, Adrian says: "She does what I call 'the pretty parts'. With this house we've been able to do much more than you can in a renovation where you have a work within an existing structure."

They may well do this all over again as they sell this large home in favour of something smaller now that their adult children have left home.