7 minute read
Wild & wonderful
This home in the Mackenzie Country, that survived a devastating fire, stands as testament to teamwork – and sheer good fortune
AS TIM MUELLER drove into the stunning lakeside village of Ōhau for the first time, the usually garrulous engineer was speechless. “The wildness – so vivid, crisp and clean – had a sense of the untamed to it,” he says. “Yet it wasn’t too far off the beaten track.” He thought it a good place to build.
Fortunately, his wife Marley thought so too. When Tim sent her a video of the gently sloping 700-squaremetre section, with its views of the snow fields and the lake, she said immediately: “Buy it”. So they did.
The couple had been looking for a bolthole for quite a few years, somewhere that could evolve into a place to retire when they left Auckland. The home they built fast-forwarded those plans.
It’s easy to see why. The single-level house with its modern-rustic aesthetic is set in a location that evokes superlatives, but the inner experience is just as special as the outer. It’s warm and stylish, with a personality that turns up the welcome. F
ABOVE Clad in random-width-and-depth vertical cedar board, the north-east corner of this home is wrapped in schist. The owners love to sit on the deck in the morning sun watching the world go by. RIGHT Timber panelling on the front of the island echoes the exterior cladding, and Orlando Steel Matt Black Grill pendants add an industrial edge.
ABOVE Pattern brings a personalised touch to the kitchen, with Carpet Vestige wall tiles that have the effect of a worn Axminster carpet, and in the fineflecked Infinity benchtops in a golden-toned ‘King Sand’ colour.
While the Muellers had never built before, they had renovated extensively and trusted architectural designer Lynda Murphy to understand their dreams. “We gave her some photos of the section, contours, levels and an idea of how we would like to live, and she came up with some freehand sketches and concept designs,” says Tim.
Simultaneously, they were searching for a builder and had long admired a number of David Reid Homes, both in Orewa where they used to live and in Queenstown. They liked the style of architecture, the attention to detail and knew the business had a good reputation.
Nevertheless, when they first met local franchise owners Aaron and Nikki Mackay, they were just a tad concerned. “I thought, holy smokes – this lad is not long out of short pants,” laughs Tim. But when they asked around about Aaron’s skills as a builder, the response was unequivocal. Youth meant enthusiasm, but he also had experience and, as it turns out, lots of patience.
It took an entire year for the couple to evolve the plans for their single-level, three-bedroom home to a stage where they could put the first spade in the ground. Aaron was there every step of the way, remotely or directly, at all hours of the day. The couple will never forget a visit to Nikki’s mum’s place, which Aaron had built and wanted to show them. “We went along to look at her house for ideas; the creativity and use of materials were fantastic,” says Tim. Later, on a visit to Twizel just before Christmas 2018 to meet up with Aaron and Nikki who had their young twins in tow, the couple finally signed the contract. It was all go from there.
Nestled into the alpine environment, the home looks at one with the landscape. “We wanted to move away from using lots of shiny stainless steel and glass for a more relaxed, earthy feel and wanted something a bit F
LEFT Fumed oak floors (from Germany) team with the walls and ceiling panelled in okoume plywood to ensure a warm aesthetic in the living zones.
BELOW Tim and Marley planned the footprint around furniture they already owned, including the dining table and a sofa from Gascoigne Furniture which has been decorated with a huia scatter cushion from Spotlight.
LEFT In the hallway, doors in Resene ‘Double Foundry’ look smart against walls painted Resene ‘Napa’ and a blueprint of a ventilation system, originally drawn by Tim’s father, has been printed onto vinyl as a unique piece of wall art. ABOVE The couple wake each day to a view of Mount Sutton and the Ōhau snow fields.
different – without locals saying, ‘Oh they must be Aucklanders’,” explains Marley.
The house is clad in cedar, and the vertical boards have a textural 3D profile and are light stained to match the surrounding tussock. At first, Tim and Marley thought of corrugated iron and then weathered steel as cladding, but Aaron steered them clear. Instead, to break up the timber, there are elements of weathered steel at the entrance while, on the north-east corner of the dwelling, schist sourced from Cluden quarry features.
The material theme is picked up indoors with a wall of weathered steel behind the living room woodburner and in the L-shaped kitchen, where the island bench features the same random-width-and-depth cedar cladding. “That was Aaron’s idea; he used offcuts to wrap it on three sides,” says Tim.
Marley relished the opportunity to be creative in the interiors and took inspiration from the colours of the nearby Lindis Valley: ochres, yellows and burnt orange. In the bathrooms, she challenged the tiler to incorporate some decorative tiles gifted to her by her brother. “I based the bathroom colours and the pale blue in the laundry around them,” says Marley.
That’s not the only piece of family history woven into the scheme. In the long hallway, there’s a mural of a hand-drawn blueprint of a ventilation system. “My father was a sheet-metal worker who designed that for a hospital in California,” explains Tim, who had it printed onto vinyl.
While the tradie who was subcontracted to install it was impressed, another of the couple’s ideas didn’t go down so well. Tim was keen on storing wood beneath the floor near the fireplace and wanted a way to access it from inside. “It’s a challenge to get a builder to cut a hole in a perfectly good, somewhat expensive, wooden floor,” he laughs. Aaron’s crew relented. Tim got his hatch.
In fact, the relationships that developed over the course of the build were so close, the couple say it felt F
like one big family. So, it wasn’t a surprise that at 6am on the morning of October 4th 2020, they received a phone call. It was Aaron checking up on them. Three hours earlier, they’d shut the door behind them, jumped in the car and fled a fire that was set to destroy 48 homes in the village. “The wind had kept us up all night, the fire was a short distance away and we had a sense of doom,” remembers Marley.
Destruction was random, and only fate and the efforts of the fire crews spared them from ashes. When they sit on the covered deck looking up at Mount Sutton, embraced by the shelter of the home, the Muellers know they are the lucky ones. “The resolution and determination of the people here sets them apart,” says Tim. Living here now, amidst a community that is drawn closer and a landscape that endures, feels even more special. P
LEFT A luxurious Vivienne bathtub with organic lines was a must for long soaks in the middle of winter. Sandstone Grey Matt floor tiles and Casero Grey wall tiles continue the textural theme.
Putting the dream in team
Building a home means collaborating closely with a whole new team of people to bring a vision to life. Here are Tim and Marley’s tips on making it work: • Do your due diligence and check out local builders – ask for references and go to see their previous projects if you can. Talk to the owners about how the project went. • Wherever you build, choose local people to smooth the process.
Here in Ōhau, remoteness was a challenge for getting subbies, but
David Reid Homes sorted all that.
A local builder will have wellsorted supply-chain logistics, too. • Stay flexible about your options, especially when it comes to trying to achieve a good result within budget. Aaron was sensitive to this and made helpful
suggestions, but it did mean we had to make some compromises. • Find a builder you can trust and then…trust them! When we wanted to clad the house all in weathered steel, Aaron took us to a lunch spot in Oamaru which was completely wrapped in “the metal stuff you guys like”. It convinced us that would be over the top. • Be prepared to agree to disagree at times. Sometimes we bowed to Aaron’s judgement, but other things we insisted on. We kept the communication honest and there were no arguments or fights.
