White sails in the sunset

In the real estate business, timing is everything. And sometimes it works in your favour, as Gary and Kay Siegel discovered when they planned to move to an easy lock up and leave apartment in the seaside suburb of Matua in Tauranga. They learned something else, too.

“My recommendation is that people in their seventies shouldn’t build,” jokes Gary. “The construction process took nearly two years. We actually bought another place and lived in it while this was going up. But we wanted a good sound building, concrete and steel reinforced. No leakers for us!”

Building the house came about by accident: the couple had booked an apartment, one of five planned for the site by a developer.

When the global financial crash of 2008 meant the development was cancelled, the land was offered to Kay and Gary. The couple turned to Insight Architecture, who’d created the apartment plans, to create a single house just for them instead.

“We figured that they knew the site. We wanted a simple plan, but a very good plan. We wanted a nice high stud, and to take advantage of the slope of the site for the views,” says Gary.

“We got three metre studs upstairs, and from the ground floor entrance you can look up the full six metres.”

The original 1929 farmhouse (the area was a citrus orchard) was moved to the countryside to make space for the new house. The Siegels did not stint on the quality of the house, vouching for the work of Shaw Builders, their staff, suppliers and sub-contractors. Judges for Master Builders House of the Year agreed,