Houses revisited: Cook Strait House

Look out from any of this home’s heat, spacious and surprisingly serene rooms and be seduced by views to die for: rugged fingers of rock claw their manner out into the ocean, forming rock swimming pools straight beneath the location; whereas trying south, a ghostly imaginative and prescient of the South Island’s Kaikoura hills settles on the horizon line. Boats, dolphins and whales cross by and even the hills to the north of the bay – seen from the kitchen, the courtyard and the upstairs hall and nook – are a feast for the eyes. These sights are echoed within the distinctive native colors and the high-quality pure supplies of the inside.

Fantastically deliberate and detailed, all the things about this home suits contextually inside its difficult clifftop web site. Over the water, the luxurious mossy-olive inexperienced foliage of Taputeranga Island is mimicked within the bespoke-dyed carpet of the library, bedrooms and research; wealthy tobacco-coloured tiles in a single rest room reference the slippery brown seaweed within the rock swimming pools beneath; whereas the pebble-strewn polished concrete flooring within the residing space and timbers used all through the home mirror the coastal panorama.

Upon arriving on the home from the road, a winter backyard gives guests with shelter from wind and rain. Enter right into a sculptural house of intersecting rooms and staircases; this light-filled, double-height atrium permits the homeowners to simply speak with one another, from their particular person research and bedrooms on totally different ranges, via cut-outs within the partitions and from an overhead bridge on the primary flooring.

From the outset, the homeowners gave the architects a transparent temporary that they needed to “reside within the view”, to “monitor the solar round the home” and “discover appropriate locations to take a seat at totally different instances within the day”. Downstairs, a big examine is nestled into the hill, whereas upstairs a stairwell encloses a comfortable, offering a play house for the proprietor’s daughter, located simply off her bed room. The hall additionally acts as a sunroom for studying whereas, subsequent door, the principle bed room opens up right into a dressing room with a panoramic ocean view.

On the bottom flooring, an open residing/kitchen space hyperlinks right into a library, visitor room, rest room, laundry and examine. The kitchen options stone worktops, bespoke walnut cabinetry and a seductive burnt timber flooring, alongside a sunny casual consuming space at one finish. Each look out into the winter backyard and a secluded north-facing courtyard. On the outside, silvery cedar fins enable simply sufficient gentle and heat in to keep away from overheating the inside.

The architect-builder-client relationship was an immensely pleased one and, surprisingly, the shopper could be eager to do it over again, besides they in all probability gained’t; it appears as if they’ve already discovered their good place within the world.

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Observe: These are tales from our archives and, because the time of writing, some particulars might have modified together with names, personnel of particular companies, registration standing, and so forth.