Resort-style chic comes to a builder’s own Auckland home.
A builder and his family find contentment in this resort-like Auckland home
Words ROSEMARY BARRACLOUGH / Photographs TESSA CHRISP
Builders are known for always being on the move. Along comes a whopping offer for a beautiful new home... and out come the packing boxes. Not so Tony and Karen Pexton. They’ve found their sweet spot at Birkenhead Pt in Auckland, looking out across the Waitematā Harbour to the Chelsea Sugar works, sitting in all its pink glory like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
To be fair, Tony and Karen had shifted a lot before they built this home 15 years ago, but they’d lived in Birkenhead Pt for 10 years before that, and the site of their current home is their alltime favourite. “We see this area as the pinnacle of the point. The views are great, there are beautiful sunsets, it’s relatively quiet and we love looking at the sugar works – it’s an iconic part of New Zealand’s history,” says Tony.
In 2005 they spotted a section with a clifftop view that had been subdivided in 1922. “It had sat there empty for that whole time, which to us seemed quite incredible,” says Tony.
Their company, TP Builders, had worked alongside architect Allan Shanahan on a raft of projects, so Tony and Karen asked him to design their new home. “The brief was that we wanted it to feel like a resort. But we also wanted it to fit in with the neighbourhood,” says Tony.
So they went for weatherboards and a corrugated iron roof, as a
nod to the old sugar works’ cottages and villas that dot the suburb and give it its heritage feel.
The vaulted ceilings and fans bring a Balinese retreat vibe, and a top priority was to make the most of the outlook. “We wanted to be able to look right through the house from the pool to the view,” says Karen.
Tony has spent 35 years in the building trade and is a chief judge for Registered Master Builders House of the Year. He’s lost count of the number of houses he’s built, but it would be getting up towards 70, with multi-million dollar renovations on top of that.
But building your own home involves an extra layer of stress, he says. “I was knackered by the time we finished this. It’s that whole level of decision-making that as a builder you pass on to your client. While you might hold their hand, they ultimately have to make the decisions,” says Tony. By the end of the 14-month build, he just “wanted it done”.
Having built so many houses, what advice does Tony have for a first-timer embarking on a building project? “Make sure they’ve researched their builder. Talk to people… not just the reference that they’ve given you. Let’s face it, they won’t use the ones who don’t like them. And make sure they know what they are getting for their money. Be very clear about what’s not included.
“Be careful of fads. For example our tapware throughout is Grohe which has been around for a long time… go for something that’s a little bit more traditional that won’t go out of style. Kitchens and bathrooms suck up a lot of money, but if you put in
quality you won’t regret it.” And don’t forget the extras, he says. The cost of landscaping, for example, could be anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of the build cost.
For Tony and Karen, outdoor living was a priority, with the pool going in before building started. Their three-level garden worked perfectly as their daughter Hannah, now a 22-yearold architecture student, was growing up, with a secret hedged garden up the back that hides a trampoline.
Out the front, they didn’t want lawn, and were drawn to a tidy, structured look. After experimenting with different plants, and a refresh by landscape designer Cilla Cooper five years ago, they’ve settled on a pared-back palette they love. Big bromeliads bring colour and drama, and Karen loves the softness and movement of the grasses. A boardwalk adds a tropical feel and has been dubbed “the landing strip” by the neighbours because of its lighting that turns on automatically when the sun goes down. Tony grew tired of faffing about with sensor lights that never seemed to work properly.
Both Karen and Tony admit they’re not really gardeners, and monthly visits from Muddy Wellies keeps their planting looking pristine. The star jasmine that cascades down one side of the pool is a maintenance nightmare, says Tony. It’s a mission to trim, and foliage and flowers drop into the pool, but he can’t bear to get rid of it because for two or three weeks every year it flowers and looks sensational.
If they can plan one of their fairly frequent parties for the star jasmine season, that’s great, but this home works brilliantly for
entertaining any time of the year, they say. There are impromptu neighbourhood barbecues, annual Christmas drinks for 60, Hannah’s 21st where they erected a clear marquee so you could still see the stars, Tony’s parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and three surprise birthdays, including a 007 party and casino night for Tony’s dad, who died in 2017.
It’s those memories that anchor them strongly to this house now. A pair of binoculars, which were a house-warming present from Tony’s parents, are at the ready to look out on the everchanging view – one day you might see a ship unloading at the sugar works, the next a boat stuck on the reef.
When Tony’s mum and dad gave them those binoculars, they said “this is a special place,” says Tony, who couldn’t agree more.
‘We wanted it to feel like a resort. But... to fit in with the neighbourhood’