Why This Modern House Is the Perfect Escape From Modern Life (House Tour)

The Lake Hayes house sits on a flat site, north-facing, outlooking over the Lake Hayes, and it's a beautiful, tranquil environment with panoramic views. You experience vast landscapes of rolling hills with the snow, kept mountains, green landscape with bush, and the rocky formations of the hill behind us really lend itself to a great spot for an architectural home. I'm Kate Wyatt, an associate at Crossland Architects, and I was project architect on this Lake Hayes house. The brief for this project was an alteration and addition of an existing house that sat on this site. They seeked a design response that elevated the existing home and brought it more in line with the local Queenstown aesthetic. This project consisted of two parts, given it was an alteration and addition. The first part was with regards to the internal planning and reconfiguring the spaces to be more cohesive and open, essentially opening up the kitchen, dining, living, and creating other moments within the interior, such as wine cellars, bars, galleries. The second part was in relation to the exterior form and materiality. We looked at how we could better connect the existing home to the landscape through an extruded gable end form, but also upgrading the front entry, which was once an understated back door. As you arrive at this property, you enter through a gate and a winding driveway that leads you to the front door. As you enter, you experience this nice, generous volume, and you're framed with a picture frame window that gives you a snip to the exterior courtyard at the back. As we move through the space, we have the wine cellar on our left with Western red cedar, timber paneling, and steel joinery. Following this, we arrive in the open-plan kitchen, dining, living area, which is when you get your first glimpse of the stunning views out to Lake Hayes. The outdoor living space integrates seamlessly with the interior living spaces through extruded gable form that connects the dining room extension to a covered courtyard. Tucked in around the back, we have a scullery and a wee bar that's hidden behind the timber paneling doors where the clients can enjoy a drink with their friends and their family. Just off this main area, there's a lounge that is the perfect place to tuck away in the winter months with the cozy red wine in hand and sit in front of the fire. The main living quarters reside in the central portion of the house. Either side of that are two living wings, one for their family and one for the guests, which enables the house to expand and contract and allow the house to feel cozy and intimate when it's just the family here. The rugged Queenstown landscape inspired the material choice, especially with regards to the local schist, taking formation of the hill and the rocky formations behind us. We wanted the house to feel like it belonged here while also feeling refined and timeless. It was important that although we had used raw, rugged materials on the outside, such as local schist and courting steel, that added a sense of ruggedness that really relates to the landscape. But it was important that the interior still felt calm, warm, and inviting. We did this through bringing Western Red Cedar timber paneling internally, as well as using Forte fluorine on the floor and soft materials such as carpets and linen. We chose Forte fluorine for this project because we loved the rustic nature of that Van Gogh timber fluorine. This can be seen in the central living quarters, down the hallways to the bedrooms, and within the bar. The product selected for this house really lent itself to the Queenstown aesthetic. With the pulled back soft hues and the rustic nature of the timber board, and the wider boards were a perfect fit for these large interior spaces. It was chosen by the client not only for its beautiful nature, but also because it will stand the test of time. I have many favorite parts of this project, from the front entry modernist intervention to the central gable pavilion with a dining room extension that connects the interior to the exterior and beautifully frames the lake with Coronet Peak beyond.