MOR E IS MORE
After the Christchurch quakes this family rebuilt their mid-century house just as it was – and then some
For those who saw Kim Rutter and David Roche’s Christchurch house demolished after the earthquakes, it was a surprise to see the same house reappear two years later. But the couple, aficionados of mid-century modern style, so loved their 1957 abode that they were never tempted to replace it with a 21st century edifice.
The Merivale house was avant-garde in its day with its angles, beams and high-pitched ceilings, says Kim, who set to work returning the interior to that era after they bought it in 2000. A major renovation in 2009 included installing a Mondrian-style kitchen and a music room for David, a pathologist who plays sax. But a year later the quakes struck, rupturing the concrete slab foundation and oozing liquefaction through the floor.
With the house red-stickered, David and Kim decamped to temporary accommodation with their teenage children, Geraldine and Edward, while builders replaced the old house with a new one just the same. >
For the next 18 months, Kim, an engineer and university lecturer, spent her downtime online hunting and gathering for their next home.
“I normally morph from phase to phase but this is more complete because it was done in one hit,” she says. “I also moved more into the 70s. The kitchen went from Mondrian to kind of The Jetsons meets 2001: A Space Odyssey.” She picked a galactic purple to match a set of Italian bar stools and sent the fridge to an automotive sprayer for a corresponding coat. Space-themed posters, many originals from a family trip to Comic-Con in San Diego, adorn the adjoining family room walls, with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin sharing space with Barbarella and an array of Star Trek posters. The retro sci-fi look doesn’t preclude latter day mod-cons, with a state-of-the-art curved TV screen and pastel ceiling lights that change hue with a voice-activated iPhone command.
One of the few major modifications in the rebuild was downsizing the children’s bedrooms. With both kids away at university, David nabbed half of each room for a gym and a study. The latter houses the technology hub and sound system, which includes a turntable adapted to play vinyl records throughout the house, such as Kim’s father’s collection of jazz 78s.
“David and I research different things. He does the sound and I do the vision,” says Kim. >
The living room is a medley of mid-century and 1970s memorabilia with its turquoise velvet sofa, yellow bubble chair, orange knock-off Eames recliner and gold sunburst clock. “The builder walked in and said, ‘This looks like my gran’s house and I don’t mean that in a good way.’”
Kim’s Chinese-Malaysian heritage is behind the Asian pieces sitting among the pop art, from antique porcelain scrolls and ornately carved chests to the larger-than-life Vladimir Tretchikoff Lady from Orient wallpaper image in the front hall. The glitzy lucky cat who waved from last year’s Chinese-themed Christmas tree is now on display on what Kim describes as the “wall of crap” (see it on page 26), an exhibition of the irreverent and curious that rotates from a “cupboard of crap”. >
It currently includes a phial containing woolly mammoth hair, satirical works by Ai Weiwei and Maurizio Cattelan, penis bones and comparative brains of various small creatures, and a Donald Trump herb planter. Mr Putin’s there, too, alongside Chairman Mao and a pink flocked Madonna, all firmly held down with earthquake putty.
Although they lost a lot of treasures in the quakes, Kim and David gained a dinner set of special significance. When friends were asked to “bring a plate” to a post-quake party, they knew Kim didn’t mean food. “Everyone brought a piece from a broken set,” she says. “It looks amazing laid out on the table, but revolting with food on it.”
Decor decisions often involve robust family discussions, particularly regarding wallpaper, but Kim is clearly chief curator. “Whenever I want to do something with my room,” says Edward, “I have to go through several layers of upper management.”
It was something of a surprise that management approved his bedroom wallpaper, a 70s Slim Aarons photograph of actor George Hamilton with two bare-breasted women in a boat off St Tropez. “It’s neo-feminism,” explains Kim. “If George had his shirt off no one would bat an eyelid.” Edward argues that neofeminism isn’t the same as the free-the-nipple movement, and says he chose it because he felt it was a great period image that really matched the house. >
His sister’s choice from the made-to-measure online murals at Surface View met with less approval. Kim hesitates at the door. “Geraldine’s dream would be to live in a little Victorian cottage with roses,” she says apologetically, opening the door to reveal a brass bedstead with soft green ruched cover and pretty botanical wallpaper. “She could have had a wall of Beano magazines or street scenes from Beirut in the 50s. She could have had anything, and she chose this!”
Kim had her own plans for a Bollywood bathroom firmly vetoed by the entire family. “It was going to be amazing. There was going to be pink and blue and green, and pressed tin and glass, but everyone spat the dummy. I don’t always get my own way, which is disappointing.”
David might have power of veto, but one thing’s for sure, he says: “There’s never a dull moment living with Kim.”