MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
A pair of writers channelled the style of a favourite Hollywood hotel when renovating their Westmere home
A Spanish Mission house channels Hollywood glamour ON THE COVER
When it came to renovating their Spanish Mission home in seaside Westmere in Auckland, writers Stacy Gregg and Michael Lamb knew exactly the effect they were after. They had always fancied living in their own version of that Hollywood landmark beloved by writers and film-makers, the Chateau Marmont Hotel.
“We loved the idea of those heady days when writers sat around the pool at the hotel and then retreated back to their bungalows or the studio lot,” says Stacy.
The couple were already besotted with Spanish Mission architecture observed during work trips to Los Angeles and Spain and, as it happened, they lived a few houses down from a little Spanish Mission house Stacy coveted every time she drove past. So when the house came up for auction in 2010 Stacy and Michael were there, bidding enthusiastically. But, alas, another couple put in a higher bid and that was that. Stacy asked to be put on the reserve list even though she’d resigned herself to her loss.
But then the couple who’d won the auction had a change of heart. Were Stacy and Michael still interested? Yes, please. Then they changed their minds again. Er, sorry. And then it was back on again. Were they still interested? “You can’t keep doing this to me,” Stacy told the real estate agent in tears. Fortunately for her heart rate, they didn’t.
So that’s how Stacy and Michael and daughter Isadora became the proud owners of a 90sqm Spanish Mission-style house. But 90sqm is small. Her friend, author Nicky Pellegrino, laughed when she saw it. “Oh my God, it’s a facade in a film set,” she said. “There’s nothing behind the great frontage.” >
To say there was nothing behind the facade was perhaps an exaggeration, but there wasn’t a lot. Two bedrooms, a small lounge and kitchen. The house was built in 1936 and for most of its life had been the home of a lovely old couple, Ruby and Fred, says Stacy. All the fittings were original.
The family lived in the small house for more than three years before renovating it, moving out for six months when work began. They chatted with good friend and architect Juan Molina, who came up with a vision that matched their own and their ideas were given shape by the draughting team at Assemble. The first priority was to extend the house, but Stacy and Michael were clear this had to be done seamlessly. They didn’t want a house of two halves.
With the aid of a talented plasterer, their wish was granted. Rough-cast plasterers have their own flick styles. “The plasterer could tell there were three different people who’d done the original house by their flick styles,” says Stacy. “He had his own style, but he adapted it to fit in with this house. It was all done by hand and he did the whole house in two hours flat.”
The couple also wanted arches, a sliding wooden barn door, tiles and a pool. Somewhere on Pinterest there are Stacy Greggcreated boards attesting to these obsessions du jour. In the end the house got them all, though, some might say, at great cost. Stacy doesn’t see it that way. “Most of the cost of renovating goes into things you can’t see, like miles of German piping in the slab for the underfloor heating system. Things like tiles costing, say, double what most tiles cost are nothing in the long run and I don’t regret that one bit.”
In fact those geometric Italian tiles in earthy muted shades (Patricia Urquiola for Mutina) were the first thing she ordered.
Another cherished addition is the parquet chevron floor in Lithuanian oak imported from Melbourne. The hand-laid timber echoes the dark narrow-gauge matai boards in the original house. >
The family got their arches in the kitchen and hallway, which was risky, Stacy admits. “If it had gone wrong, it could have been very Henderson Valley circa 1970, rather than chic and Spanishinspired.” Also ticked off their wish-list was a sliding barn door (in a bedroom) and a salt-water pool. After removing a giant oak they put in a tiled courtyard too.
Stacy writes her hugely popular pony novels (21 in total, twice winning the Children’s Choice award in the New Zealand book awards and with her new novel, The Girl Who Rode The Wind, up for the big award again this year) in a separate office overlooking the pool, attached to the end of their wooden garage. Plans to develop the garage into a self-contained space never eventuated, as Stacy and Michael are moving on, and the house is to be sold.
Although she’ll be sad to leave, Stacy looks back on the renovation with satisfaction. The little Spanish Mission house grew from 90 to 200sqm and the budget doubled, but Stacy’s glad they stuck with authentic option. “They say it’s cheaper to do a new build than to renovate, but we didn’t want to stick a glass box on the back and we felt it would be sacrilege to tear it down. I think it did cost more… but you can’t buy character.”