Favourite building

Nicholas Stevens on his Gummer and Ford home and office

“Mayfair is one of Auckland’s most elegant buildings. It looks like a neo-Georgian doll’s house in red brick and off-white plaster, beautifully proportioned with a palm-court entrance, clay-tile roof and sash windows. Children often say it looks like Madeline’s house. It sits like a sentinel at the top of Parnell Rise, a little piece of the Old World transposed to the New World. Designed in 1928 by Gummer and Ford, the pre-eminent architects of the day, and built by Fletcher Construction, it was considered an exemplar for urban living – and maybe it still is. With its human scale, clever planning and robust materials, Mayfair can provide inspiration for today’s liveable urban intensification. It has been occupied by a cast of colourful characters throughout the years – by urbane and cosmopolitan types to bohemians in the 1970s, then students when it was run down in the 1980s. Many people I’ve met have either lived there, had friends who did, or frequented parties there. Sometimes there’s a sense of living in a novel; it’s a building of so many stories. But it’s also my favourite building for another reason: it’s where I live and work. My wife Deborah and I were students when we moved in and have simply never wanted to leave. Over the years we’ve accumulated several apartments on the top floor for our home and across the foyer for Stevens Lawson – my practice with Gary Lawson and our crew. I try to blame traffic congestion for being late to work, but nobody buys it. Mayfair is our bird’s nest, our sanctuary that overlooks the harbour, the city and the Domain, so close to the things we love.”