Staying true to heritage
Part of the beauty of this sheltered Hawke’s Bay home is the wonderful space around it, writes Robyn Welsh
Twenty five years ago, James Joll came here looking for land where he could build a home. He settled on this farmland on the western side of Te Mata Peak for its aspect, its landscape and the added appealof it having an ancestral connection as being part of the Joll Estate dating back to the year 1900.
But that wasn’t the earliest Joll family connection here. In 1842, some of the original Joll family who had settled in New Plymouth on their arrival from Cornwall, England, travelled east to the Hawke’s Bay looking for a different colonial perspective.
They were among the earliest European settlers in the days when the land was being cleared of its native trees.
Generations later, James Joll spent his first 10 years on this land planting swathes of native trees, before turning his thoughts to building a home to suit.
Now, 15 years later, he looks out to the green payback that is those maturing trees and the regeneration of native bush including young totara.
Of his own native plantings that include totara, puriri and matai, he says “The biggest trees are coming up 24 years old now and there’s a nice volume to them. The most significant part of this land is the trees because this is not an area that will ever be intensively developed, so they will be here for a very long time.”
As for his home here, James had no grand vision in mind. Rather, he let the most obvious part of the land that is “a rather nice knob on its own, the perfect platform on the side of the hill” dictate the form of the home for his then young- adult family.
“This house is a house about the site rather than a house about me,” he says. “It was not about what I needed; it was about what the site needed. I was very aware that this was a significant landscape and that whatever I did was going to be very obvious.”
Built in a recognised “Outstanding Natural Features and Landscapes Area”, the house is one of only five or so other homes in this area, he says.
Well- known Napier architect Gavin Cooper was commissioned to design this home and his response to this sloping landscape is a masonry/ zinc- clad home that unfolds beneath a series of mono- pitched roof planes, with separate twostorey guest accommodation with identical interior materials.
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Orientated to take in sweeping views from the Mahia Peninsula to the Ruahine ranges, the main home has a 4m high stud kitchen, dining and family room. High windows add to the sense that the roof is floating above the interior spaces.
In the Italian- imported timber kitchen, stone is a feature of the benches and in the matching tiled wall. Terrazzo floor tiles feature in the living areas, wet areas and transition spaces. En route from the living areas to the bedrooms, this popular sunny winter reading area has sweeping views looking north to Napier.
Part of the beauty of this sheltered home is the space around it, says James. “You could build two more houses on the land that is around it. There’s room for a tennis court and pool.”
Around the separate guest house, a grove of James’ cabbage trees and limestone rocks brought on site are the backdrop to private outdoor living and dining.
While James no longer needs such a big home, he is not leaving the area. He is moving to a home nearby and will maintain his Joll family connections to the land and the trees.