The Summer House | André Hodgskin

A low profile Screened by native planting, The Summer House on Waiheke Island sits discretely on a large block with a gentle southern slope and magnificent views over the Hauraki Gulf. When they contacted him in 2009, Hodgskin’s clients – a semi-retired couple with a large Victorian house in Auckland – had owned the property with a partially completed abandoned project for several years. But with four young grandchildren, they realised it was time to build. The client did not want a monument - it had to be something which was very casual, loose and certainly very understated. The Summer House’s circuitous approach is retained by creating a see-through house, one which frames the view behind. Inside its main pavilion sliding doors disappear into the wall on either side, transforming the main living area into a sort of glorified breezeway. The Summer House is quite a large building in terms of its brief– six bedrooms, five bathrooms and garage – and fitting all that in has been a delicate process. But breaking the house in two allows the house to respond to the majesty of the site. The main living box has the master bedroom at one end connected to the open-plan living area by large pivot doors, while at the other end there’s a snug. When the owners come here on their own, they can live in just this box; when the family descends they open up the other box, consisting of “a carriageway” of four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Downstairs, dug into the hill, is the garage and a self-contained suite, intended for an office or extra accommodation. The building’s discreet presence is largely due to its form and materials. The ebony-stained plywood cladding and bronzed aluminium joinery draw their colours from the ancient dark boughs of the pohutukawas, while the odd splash of green, orange and a particularly vivid yellow are drawn from the colours of the leaves through the seasons. This modernity is new territory for the owners compared to their previous Victorian villa. “We’re not minimalists,” one admits, slightly bashfully. “We’re squashy sofa people.” And to an extent, the house does that too – it might be modern but it’s comfortable, rather than stark or hard. Instead it is a playful house, expanding out to cope with as many as 70 people, all the while taking knocks from ebullient grandchildren. Abridged text by Simon Farrell-Green