This perfect winter retreat on Waiheke Island offers panoramic ocean views, while satisfying the owners’ passions for entertaining friends and family with homegrown wine and food.

 

What’s not to love about an island retreat that can be enjoyed in winter as much as summer, with beaches and wineries nearby, easy access to good fishing hotspots, and a vineyard to harvest and make wine? The site also enjoys panoramic ocean views from Oneroa Bay to Hakaimango Point, and to the Hauraki Gulf in the distance. Originally from Rotorua, the owners chose this Waiheke Island site to create a home where they could pursue their main passions for winegrowing, cooking, crafts and boating. They replaced Sauvignon Blanc grapevines growing on the rolling hills to the east with their favourite wine grape, Syrah. In the basement, they installed a wine cellar and, in the entertainment space, an authentic Italian pizza oven to help satisfy their guests. This was pimped up by the architect and builder – covered in a thick and curvaceous gunmetal-grey coating that matches the surrounding concrete wall.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

Architect Dave Strachan, founder of Strachan Group Architects (SGA), describes the entertaining room as “almost like the pizza shop”. It’s a casual space with a large wooden dining table at its centre that you enter via huge contemporary barn doors. Opposite the fire and oven, glazed sliding doors open into a timber-rich kitchen and another dining area, creating a warm atmosphere and a nice flow throughout the main living spaces. Clerestory windows just under the roof edges are designed to draw in light, while the concrete wall helps protect the house from southerly winds. The simple skillion roof appears to float over the heavier form and slopes down the length of the building towards the northwest. At this end of the building, a mezzanine master suite overlooks a double-height lounge, study and office, which is linked to guest bedrooms, a craft room, the sauna, a wine cellar, and an outside deck with spa pool.

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

The materials were chosen for low-maintenance and durability to suit the coastal environment, where salt and wind can be challenging. Given the unpredictability of the weather, the architects needed to create areas out of the wind, so there are decked areas that can be occupied away from the direction of the wind. Internally, the spaces can be opened or closed up, depending on what the weather is doing. While architecturally-designed houses are typically sited beside the coast or within a rural or an urban area, Oneroa House offers both seaside and rural aspects. At night, coastal properties just offer the blackness of the sea as a view, so there is little to see, but “this particular property offers some Kiwi-ness,” suggests Dave. “There are barns, little buildings, expensive buildings, rocky outcrops, bays, and you can see the changing light and conditions. It’s an active view that’s quite special.”

​

Oneroa House not only embodies the architects’ design approach but the owners’ dreams have well and truly been embedded into its DNA. Dave remarks, “As architects, we feel really privileged when clients enable us to be part of adding a framework of buildings, and some life, around their dreams.” The owners’ passion for the landscape ensures this project will be an ongoing process to develop the whole site. “They occupy the land beyond and not just the building – they’re stretching their fingers out into the landscape, making it all one.”

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

 

Words by Justine Harvey.

Photography & videography by Simon Devitt and Sampford Cathie