Inside a Dream Island Home Designed for Slow Living and Barefoot Luxury
Perched on an Oneroa hillside, this house belies its architectural rigour with an inherent ease. It is a place for bare feet and open doors; for slow mornings, warm afternoon sun, and conversations that linger long into the evenings.
For architects Kate Rogan and Eva Nash of Rogan Nash Architects, it is the seemingly minute details — rituals that intimately reflect a client’s way of life — that define their wider design philosophy.
In this case, the architects’ relationship with the owners stretches back more than a decade, to the renovation of their Ponsonby villa. When the couple later began considering a Waiheke property, Kate and Eva were there at the beginning, looking over this site before it was purchased.
“We got on with the clients really well,” Kate says. “They’re proper entertainers.”
At the time, an unremarkable 1970s house occupied the land. What it did have was position. Set on a natural slope in Oneroa’s suburban enclave, the site rises above its neighbours with long ocean views and an unexpected sense of privacy.
“It’s perched up on the hill, amongst a mix of baches and permanent homes,” Eva explains. The rear of the property faces south, while the northern edge meets the street and, beyond it, the view.
The old house was removed and, in its place, the architects began to develop something entirely different: a coastal home with a certain strength to its architecture, but an inherent informality to the way it would be occupied.
“They wanted quite a strong, masculine feel to the architecture,” Kate says. “There needed to be an elegance to it, but it also had to relate well to the coastal environment.”
Perhaps the clearest expression of that idea is the arrival. There is, in any conventional sense, no front door. A path meanders through the garden and upwards towards the deck, arriving at the centre of the building through a semi-enclosed courtyard.
“It was about having that relaxed holiday feeling as soon as you arrive,” Eva says. “You kick off your sandals and wander through the garden.”
It is a house conceived not simply as a collection of rooms to inhabit, but as a series of ways to enjoy the small moments in a day. The plan is deceptively straightforward. Kate describes it as a barbell: two principal wings connected through the middle, with a courtyard on either side of the central arrival space. Living occupies one end; bedrooms the other. Beneath, a substantial garage accommodates the more pragmatic requirements of island life, including boat storage.
Upstairs, the architecture becomes considerably more porous. The two courtyards are fundamental to that experience. One is an internal garden of sorts, a climate-modifying space that can be opened or closed depending on the conditions. Throw open the doors and the effect inside is immediate: air moves, sunlight shifts, and the planting becomes part of the interior experience. Beyond, the house unfolds again towards a sheltered deck and the northern view.
Kate explains that sustainability was embedded in the project from the outset. Orientation and passive solar design principles drove the plan; screening elements mediate sun, privacy, and airflow; rainwater is collected, and wastewater managed on site in response to Waiheke’s infrastructure requirements. Solar generation and an energy-efficient design mean the owners rarely receive an electricity bill.
Read the full feature here: https://homeofarchitecture.co.nz/open...