Finding natural harmony
Sometimes living in the country can be too much of a good thing. After living at the end of a long gravel road in Dairy Flat for years, Michael and Karen Power began to tire of driving their then teenage kids back and forth multiple times a day to school activities. They wanted to stay in the country, with space and no houses nearby, but without the commute. The land they found on Attwood Rd, an easy drive off The Avenues on the western edge of Albany, fits the bill perfectly.
“There’s a wooden gate to a secret garden, really old oak and maple that change colours with the season, kauri, kowhai and kahikatea,” says Karen. “We wanted nature, but didn’t have the time to keep stock, so we just have this stretch of mowed lawn leading to the bush. We realised we had found a special block with the view of the upper harbour and Herald Island.”
The couple knew they wanted a high quality house, engaging Masonry Villas to create the solid concrete and macrocarpa house. The design was driven by Karen, who says that the couple loved the process so much they are keen to start all over again, albeit this time on a smaller block and smaller house. Clearly her love of creating beauty has rubbed off: son Aiden, now 24, is training in Melbourne to be a landscape architect. His sisters, Brie and Kaitria are still at home, but finishing degrees and about to head overseas. The Powers’ clear thinking on a house that works for busy kids and parents is on the market for the next family.
The house, finished in 2008, is classical in style, with welcoming gable roof, deep eaves and a covered pergola for outdoor summer living. The principal rooms are oriented to both sun and views, and framed by natural landscaping that blurs into the edging paddocks.
Karen wanted the house to be in two wings — one for adults, one for kids — radiating from the central living room. Detail is her thing: she broke up the sweep of aggregate driveway and parking pad with macrocarpa sleepers, repeating the wood in the seven raised beds for the sheltered vege garden and the posts and beams through the house. The semi-formal gardens tie into the house. Grand cedar doors open off the deep front porch, a couple of steps above the open plan living, dining and kitchen.
The family wanted ample room for entertaining, so the generous kitchen welcomes a crowd around its granite island bench.
The kitchen’s timeless mix of materials, including
rich stained oak cabinets, mosaic splashback and a feature built-in chopping block, was by Elite Kitchens.
Karen wisely added a scullery with a second dishwasher and wine fridge. The informal rooms open through bi-fold doors for summer, but are cosied in the winter by underfloor hydronic heating. There is also double glazing and a gas fireplace in both the formal sitting room and outdoor loggia for more warmth. The rooms are flexible, too. There is a formal dining room, great for winter dinner parties with its rich, dark walls, but for Christmas and kids’ significant parties the Powers roll away the furniture in the great room and line up tables for 20 or more people.
Beside the formal living rooms is the master suite, complete with a full bathtub getting its own framed views of the garden. This wing also houses a huge laundry utility room, with access to the three-car garage and Mike’s enviable workshop. The back of the house is as well thought-through as the front, with covered outdoor drying porch and a vege garden and masses of fruit trees that yielded kilos of produce last summer. The guest bedroom with en suite completes this wing.
At the other side of the house is three kids’ rooms that open off a shared TV room, and there’s also a study and the shared family bathroom. One of the rooms has been taken on as Karen’s art studio — as well as her work, it features a terrific wall-sized bird sketch by Aiden. With buses to all the local secondary schools at the top of the street, the popular primary school, and Sanders Reserve right near by, this property gave the Powers the family freedom they were seeking.