Building between the flags

Memories of happy childhood holidays built into a bach at Piha create a sense of security on Auckland’s boisterous west-coast beach. Words Claire McCall; Photos: Tessa Chrisp.

ALLANA OWEN OPERATES like a chameleon on speed; she readily adapts to her environment but negotiates life in top gear. So when she and her husband Paul Brown built a low-key bach at Piha, it served two purposes. On one hand it was an exhilarating project to get her teeth into, on the other it was an anchor to slow her down.
“I’m highly organized,” says Allana, who used to plan whirlwind weekends with precision. “Having Piha alleviated the pressure of finding somewhere to go.”

There’s the sense that within the fibre-cement walls she’s created a capsule of history. There comes a time in life, an inevitable age and stage, when nostalgia nabs us. We look back and crave similar memories for our futures. Allana determined to recreate the carefree nature of a childhood family bach at nearby Huia. “My cousins and I would swim at the tidal beach, play in the pig-fern or explore the creek even after dark,” she recalls. “There was a central table we all ate at and a long drop out back.” Built by her father and uncles as a weekender in the early 1970s, the humble getaway with its mono-pitched roof was sold during the short-lived phase when Allana and her siblings considered holidaying with their parents anathema. “That period only lasts two or three years. After that you’re keen to hang out at the bach with friends at weekends.”

Allana and Paul are hopeful the same scenario won’t be replayed with their children – Augusta (20), Taylor (18) and Edith (13). They’ve designed this retreat to embrace the flow of company and egos, in separate mirror-image forms split by a central open courtyard. The two-storeyed buildings function distinctly and as a whole. It’s worked well – perhaps too well – but they’re not going to mention any rampant teenage parties that may have ensued.

Whereas Allana’s investment in the bach and the Piha area has its foundations in the romantic, Paul, a Gisborne-born architect, honed in on the rational. “It’s 40 minutes from central Auckland and never going to turn into an Omaha,” he explains. The land they bought was ostensibly on the waterfront, shielded from the often-tempestuous surf by dunes, karo bushes and waving flax. The existing shack with its dirt floor was beyond rescue. “If you’d touched it, it would have fallen over,” says Allana.

From Paul’s drawing-board emerged a sketch that offered a brush with the past. “We didn’t want anything flashy,” he says. “Places are not just about their physical manifestation. They have to say something about community, too.” Orienting the footprint was a challenge. “There was a tension between a view of the sea and the public space of the road in front of it.” Instead of grasping the view, the house turns to face north and in so doing maintains privacy. “If you want to look at the beach, you can go out and sit on a mound to do it.” The roof, as decreed by propriety, is mono pitched.

Although this escape is unashamedly modern, its materials give it a discreet presence. “I’ve taken a horribly rational approach,” Paul grins. “It’s planned on a six-by-six-metre grid where rooms are a logical size.” This framework has been in-filled with internal panels of soft-board. “I love the interesting texture,” says Allana, “it cocoons you.” The giant tic-tac-toe structure of the plan extends beyond the façade to become a loose pergola in timber. Externally, solid half-walls are interspersed with glass doors overlaid with sliding cedar shutters that allow in air and light. “The house is not over-glazed,” says Paul. Inside, this helps to maintain the intimacy of the rooms.

At one end of the living-room, a galley kitchen looks as if it has been in place for decades. The rustic aesthetic that prevails comes courtesy of exposed rough-sawn timber beams and a central spine of plywood which shields the stairwell and doubles as a back to bench seating around the dining-table. It’s enhanced by Allana’s eye for furnishings and knick-knacks that speak of a simpler time, yet it’s only recently that she’s discovered a flair for shaping interiors.

Late in 2008 she opened Queenie’s Lunchroom, a corner café in Freemans Bay, located next door to Paul’s practice, Clark Brown Architects. Although she had no food or hospitality background, it was an opportunity Allana grasped with customary zeal. “I knew it was a lottery but I like people contact and good coffee.” It’s the original décor – vintage Coke boxes as seats, a paint-by-numbers-style mural wall – that has people talking.

Allana is loath to pigeon-hole her look (although one review billed it as “cool Kiwi irony”) but says she inherited her creativity from her father Cliff, a butcher who not only designed sausages but had a passion for metal and leather work and was always “doing things with his hands”. She says, “My style is very personal. I know instantly what I like.” The thought is the deed. So it was at Piha. A 1970s lounge suite was a steal at $300 and the kitchen shelves and walls are filled with second-hand finds. “We went on a five-week road trip around the South Island and I found a fantastic shop in Oamaru.” The bread box, colander, set of enamel pots and royal souvenir cups were all discovered there but her pride and joy is a Scotty-dog eggcup that no one is allowed to use. “I bought it at Victorian Gilt in Remuera and it could have been the very same one I remember from my childhood.”

An old Atlas stove positioned to one side of the bench was discovered in a garage. “It takes three-quarters of an hour for the oven to warm up,” admits Allana, “but what’s the hurry?” To compensate, the couple often cooks on an outdoor Asian barbecue, a clay pot with a steel plate perched on a mound of scoria on the deck. “It’s funny to see five grown men standing around it, gathering twigs to put in the bottom to cook up some chicken sausages,” she laughs. In reality, she’s well aware of what the crude cooker represents. “We just don’t want to overcomplicate things here,” says Paul. “Life is complex enough.”

Since it’s an easy drive from Auckland, the house is a magnet for drop-in guests. Come Sunday evening, after a walk on the beach or time spent pottering around on the property in gumboots doing “things of no consequence”, it’s time to return to the city. It’s easier to depart knowing they’ll be back within days when Paul can get to work on his latest project – building a stone wall. “I like the idea that this place can evolve, that there is constant room for change,” he says.

As for Allana, she’s happy that, here in particular, her present reflects her past. “When I look around, it’s nostalgic. I think: ‘This is how I got to where I am now’.”