Looking over a suburban pocket of green, this compact first home is colourful on the outside, calm in the interior — and exactly right-sized for a young family.
When architect Emily Stephens first imagined the house that she and her partner Sam Owles would one day build, it was a white-on-white, clean, crisp vision. But when they eventually bought this section overlooking a stand of protected bush on Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland’s North Shore, it cried out for a different approach. “We felt we should do something more fun,” explains Emily. Sam wanted red. It’s hard now to imagine a better visual value for this little hideaway in a suburban forest.
The couple, who met as flatmates, make a great team: Emily methodical, organised; Sam supportive, ever-soslightly oblivious. “I have the technical knowledge and Sam, because he’s not thinking ten steps ahead, has the optimism,” Emily explains.
Their journey to this special spot began when Covid-19 derailed their plans to hang out in Bali for a while, living cheaply and working remotely. Instead, they moved in with Sam’s parents and started looking at property. It was during lockdown that they saw this piece of land advertised — badly. “There was an aerial image and a photo of a tūī,” says Sam, who grew up in this locale. The site was steep, yet the outlook was exceptional. And, because many people postulated that the real estate market was about to crash, it came within their budget.
Emily and Sam toyed with the idea of a prefab but, because they would still need to build a car deck and dig foundations, it didn’t make economic sense. A dwelling tailored to the land became the way forward. Even before they signed up for the property, Emily had sketched a basic plan and had a bank loan approved based on some preliminary costings. When a quantity surveyor finally got his hands on it, that plan came in at 200K over budget. “Financially, it was a wild ride,” she says.
The solution was to build the shell and then fill in the blanks later, as and when they could afford it. Another part of the answer was to draw on family expertise. Emily’s dad, Keith, is an ex-builder, which certainly came in useful.
There were many iterations of the 105sqm house — and much advice on hand. “One of the joys of having friends who are also designers,” says Emily, who has worked at Fearon Hay and Herbst Architects, “is that you can have some great collaborative sessions.”
Rectangular in form, with a simple gable roof, the petite home steps down the hillside to follow the lay of the land. Higherthan- standard ceilings in the living room capture a view of the bush, while the two bedrooms and an office to the rear benefit from half-height walls with reeded glazing above.
They overlook the living zone and have a line of sight to the trees. The arrival journey was at first planned to enter directly into the living room. “Friends said: ‘You’ve designed a bach’,” remembers Emily. So, she set about giving the house a more defined point of entrance.
Located down a long driveway off a busy street, the dwelling is a delightful surprise. Enveloped in scoria-coloured steel (on the walls and the roof), it has the nostalgia of a DOC hut yet a mild modernity: it looks cute in its coat. Descend a set of stairs from the parking platform to the front door and, once inside, the calmness of green wraps around.
The couple agonised over the design of the steps that lead from the living room to a shared office. They were fabricated by Q Metal Designs and assembled by Sam at the end of the build. Reeded glass in rosewood frames, made by Dando Doors & Windows, provides more soundproofing to the office. The artwork is a Burgundy IX print by Bobby Clark.Getting to the now wasn’t all achieved with such streamlined serenity. There were many OMG moments. Like the time the council planner announced the legal access over the shared driveway wasn’t wide enough — “it felt like so much pushback on a small house in the land”. Or the time supply issues threatened to stall the project for 16 months — builder Wayne Hoskin pulled through. Or when the framing had to be lifted by Hiab over the neighbour’s workshop. Much of it was heart-in the- mouth stuff, but with Emily’s dedication to refining detail and Sam’s relentless positivity they pulled through.
Once Wayne and his son Braegen had delivered the envelope, complete with beautiful spotted-gum flooring and recessive black joinery that disappeared into the foliage, and installed the plumbing, it was over to team spirit for the rest. Filling the ceiling with insulation, prone on mobile scaffolding, was a full family affair. Then building the kitchen began. A slab of stone bought on sale soon after they settled on the land was to be the hero on the island. “Getting the island aligned and square and attached to the floor was a mission,” recalls Emily. The cabinetry, with carcasses bought from the hardware store, was fitted with plywood doors and drawers. With Emily’s dad in a leading role, the others tried to play their part. “I handed Keith the nails,” laughs Sam. “When it comes to DIY, I started from a negative, so at least now I am better than I was.”
Slowly but surely the interiors took shape as the couple installed kitset shelving for storage in the hallway, a laundry bench with a stainless-steel top to match that in the kitchen and finished the bathroom with green tiles ordered early in the piece. “I must have redrawn the bathroom twenty times,” says Emily, who fitted a shower and a bath into the compact space. “Sam is tall, so we needed an extra-long bath; I made him lie in them at the store.”
Now that the house was almost finished, her other half jumped in with a vengeance. He became “obsessed” with the light switches and, instead of a $5 Japanese lantern for the dining area, decided on three handmade glass pendants. “He was the classic expensive-taste client,” says Emily.
A month after the couple moved in, they hosted both families for Christmas as a much deserved thank you celebration. Some gathered around the circular table and benchseating of the dining zone. Others occupied the deck on the western elevation that extends the action into the trees. It was then that Sam finally appreciated how well Emily had put her mind to both the macrocosm and the minutiae.
That was three years ago and, even though they’ve since welcomed their daughter, time hasn’t faded the sense of achievement. From the way the mundane tasks of doing the washing become seamless when everything has a place to go, to moments of magic when the mid-winter sun spills into a corner of the living room, it’s still just perfect. “As a non-architect it was tough to envisage. I just trusted Emily and went along with the process,” says Sam. This bijou city retreat is proof positive that sometimes, lived reality is so much better than imagination.
Words Claire McCall
Photography Jackie Meiring