Clean elegant lines
Open- plan living with a touch of 70s retro has served as an ideal family home, discovers Graham Hepburn
As fans of homes by Group Architects, Grace and Jon Chapman- Smith dreamed of owning a modernist gem but doubted that would ever happen. That was until they came across this 1970s two- storey timber and brick home in Golf Rd, which has elements favoured by Group Architects, a mid- 20th century collaborative who were responding to the New Zealand environment and favoured timber homes with open plan living.
With its clean, elegant lines and features such as thoughtfully placed windows, the home looks to have an architect’s touch but Grace says they don’t know who designed the home but the builder behind its construction quite often worked with architects.
When they bought the home six years ago they liked the fact that its integrity was still intact and it “hadn’t been mucked around”. The couple knew that by working within the footprint of the home they could reinvigorate it with some minor alterations and some cosmetic touches.
As directors of design studio Fuman, the couple brought some impressive skills to the renovation, which has also been a showcase for their collection of art and objects.
“Any renovations we did were more in keeping with the style of the house; we tried to work with the house so that anything we did that was new felt like it had been there forever,” says Grace. “We were not following what was on- trend. For instance, putting in a white kitchen would have looked horrible.”
And the kitchen was where they began, fitting it out with black benchtops and dark timber veneer cabinetry and creating a hatch through to the dining space for better flow. From here you can either step down to the lounge or move out to the north- facing deck, through shoji screens and then aluminium sliders. Here, the new deck follows the lines of the house, which provides shelter, and gives way to a lawn backdropped with succulent and tropical plants towards the roadside.
“Garden designer Xanthe White did a plan for the garden that we have slowly been chipping away at,” says Grace. “We have been trying to get layers of growth into the garden.”
Overlooking the back garden, the lounge has fullheight windows that capture views to the south and east from the Golf Rd ridge. Clerestory windows also push light into this space, where the home’s brickwork and timber detailing are on show.
Grace introduced a 1970s touch into the lounge in the form of blue carpet because it provided contrast with and helped to frame the greenery of the bush views. Another retro feature is the cosy conversation pit tucked into one corner that has built- in seating and where the family watch TV. Here, the couple introduced a feature wall of banana leaf motif wallpaper.
Also on this level, to the west, is a bedroom with en suite on one side and an adjoining lounge on the other that opens to the deck.
On the southern side of the dining area a spiral staircase cocooned in a cylindrical brick stairwell takes you to the lower floor where there are three more bedrooms and two bathrooms, one a wet room- style en suite to the master bedroom. The couple’s two daughters each have their own bedrooms on the western side of the house. These bedrooms open off a roomy foyer that could be used as a kids’ lounge. Off this space are the downstairs bathroom, and the laundry, which opens out to the back yard where Jon built a tree house for the kids.
Grace says there is still room for new owners to put their stamp on the home.