Once a month we send out an e-newsletter, giving behind the scenes insight into the production of the magazine, sneak previews of upcoming issues as well as interactive features.Mad about the Med
The owners of Waiheke’s Lavender Hill have spared no effort in making their island home look like a little piece of their beloved Mediterranean. Words: Rebecca Hayter; Photos: Kevin Emirali.
IT TAKES CREATIVE COURAGE to build the home of your dreams, especially when your inspiration comes from the much-admired styles of France and Italy, and to place it on New Zealand soil. Such projects can often suffer from souvenir syndrome, plucked from their origins to look forever ill-at-ease in their new surroundings.
Lavender Hill, the French/Italian-style home of David and Judy Sheary on Waiheke Island, feels totally authentic and sits as easily on the landscape as a work by Brunelleschi in a Florentine courtyard. That’s partly because it is sited among rolling slopes of vineyards and olive groves, a typically Mediterranean view. Lavender Hill borders its version with the blue-green of Tamaki Strait and the deeper blue of the Hauraki Gulf.
It was while travelling through Provence in France and Tuscany in Italy that David and Judy developed a love of the Mediterranean.
They were drawn to the architecture of the old stone houses, the landscapes, the lavender and the olives. “The history of the place is fascinating,” Judy says. “You walk up the marble steps to a cathedral and they have been there for hundreds of years. You wonder how many feet have walked over them.” David is keen on photography which deepened his fascination with the architecture and the landscape. For Judy, lavender represents the Mediterranean.
They shared a dream of living in Europe but with a grandchild (Ari, now three) on the drawing-board, decided to stay in New Zealand. They had planned to build a holiday home on their two-hectare section on Waiheke and, spending weekends there in a caravan, realized that if they couldn’t go to the Med, the Med could come to them. Without really meaning to they have adopted a Mediterranean lifestyle, growing olives and running a boutique B&B in their twin guesthouses.
Visitors arriving by ferry from Auckland are met by the Shearys at Matiatia. A short drive leads to a driveway lined with the mauve greeting of lavender. Straight ahead is a dramatic view of the house from the southern side. Judy says Mediterranean houses are “basically squares and oblongs”, so the form is simple.
There is a sense of age in the terracotta-tiled roofline and rounded, hand-plastered walls. The landscaping lets the house do the talking. Judy refers to it as small – it has only two bedrooms – but it feels large because of the double-cavity walls and the plastered wall that links it to the guest-houses. The wall is really a shelter from the prevailing sou’westerly – the price paid for hilltop views and all-day sun.
The building project began only after a lengthy battle with the council over resource consent. The sticky issue was the height of the roofline of the two-storeyed house. The solution was to shave one metre off the top of the hill. This gave the site a flat top to allow for a sweeping lawn, now fringed by lavender and rosemary, and the delay gave the Shearys more time to plan. They say this was fundamental to the success of the project although these former hairstylists are naturally creative and good at visualizing what they want. They designed the house and had a draughtsman create the plan for the builders. Just as hairstylists flick through overseas magazines looking for ideas, so did Judy and David pore over reams of magazines and books. They cut and pasted photographs of rooflines, windows, a fireplace, a farmhouse kitchen, a stairwell and pavings on to a scrap board of ideas.
