A TIME-TRAVELLING TALE
A home of two halves built more than a century apart has been magic for this family, explains ROBYN WELSH
Family life for Anna and Tim Barry and their four boys is a life lived across two eras in this intriguing villa update.
The front face of their home is this Victorian bay villa built around the 1900s when Cowan St was being progressively established in the de rigueur housing style of the day, complete with picket fences.
The rear of this house built in 2010 is a contrast in form, function, materials and finishings, built as an open-plan pavilion with a glazed stairwell as the dramatic “time machine” between the two dwellings.
From front to back, this villa is intact from its front veranda and period embellishments to its rear double-hung windows, horizontal weatherboards and vertical baseboards.
Anna and Tim, a former yoga teacher and an advertising agency executive respectively, appreciate that whole-villa preservation. For Anna, that view back through the stairwell from within her contemporary living area is still magical five years on.
“I always felt as if I was living on a movie set when I looked back and saw that wall, and we still call this ‘the villa’ too,” she says. “If we need something from there we’ll say ‘Can you get me that from the villa?”
Adding to this gallery vibe is Tim’s 1926 Harley Davidson motorcycle in the entrance, as a transitional art form.
It points to the intervening decades when this villa stood alone with its big back lawn, long before the 2009 building consent was issued for this project designed by awardwinning architect Ken Crosson.
Mirrored glass wraps around floating timber treads as they track up to the villa backdoor and its original kauri floors in the same golden tones.
Beneath its original high stud and central hall archway, the villa’s near-original footprint now includes a large bathroom, separate laundry, lounge and three bedrooms.
By contrast, the pavilion is open beneath a high stud, with matte-finished concrete floors that are the visual link with the pool-side courtyard and newly landscaped mature subtropical gardens.
Built-in furniture, including the lounge bookcase, the nearby bench seat and the dark oak master bedroom furniture upstairs is one of Anna’s favourite features.
That oak finish is repeated elsewhere, including the kitchen with its open scullery.
Anna and Tim bought here in December 2014. Their decorative refresh here has included an entire repaint in white inside and out and new light fittings in the villa.
With four boys aged 12, 3 and 4-month old twins, this house has delivered proof of purchase.
The eldest loved having his own TV lounge in the villa, turning his back on the choice of three villa bedrooms in favour of the bespoke loft above the garage.
“That sense of separation has been amazing,” says Tim of both the loft appeal and the configuration of both wings.
Now they are heading for their 24ha farm in Matakana with plans for a new home and a rural lifestyle stoked by Tim’s long-time love of horses.
Sale: Set sale August 27
Contact: Edward Pack, Bayleys, 021 428 241