The house is modelled on a basic cruciform shape. A long barn-like structure flanked by two?contemporary pavilions accommodates the master bedroom and main living areas. The interior is luxurious with an industrial edge, featuring rough-hewn wood, blackened steel, and?exposed bolts.

Walls and ceilings are lined with rich timber, the monumental scale of the house?carried through in the heavy beams and huge rusticated steel fireplace. Finishes are contemporary?and eclectic, incorporating exotic textures such as animal skins, stone, metals, and woven M?ori?panels. At the northwestern end of the house is an elliptical stone ‘remnant tower,’ which houses a wine cellar and tasting room. Above, an atmospheric king bedroom suite offers a unique?private retreat and above that, a sunny curved ‘observatory’?roof deck provides an intimate dining?or function space.

The house was designed with the concept of three time periods: 200-year-old stone ruin, mid-century barn form that runs through the centre, and the two contemporary wings (living/dining/library). Both the exterior and interior are cedar wood. The form of the house echoes the historical icon of Marsden’s Cross with the main room of the Residence in the shape of a cross. Stone was quarried from a nearby farm site and was used to build the ‘remnant tower.’ The wine cellar has a beautiful handmade chandelier built of motorcycle chain and industrial gear wheel with cast glass hangers and has 200 hand blown pieces.

Landscape architect Christine Hawthorn shaped the grounds around the Cooper Residence to contain several large mature pohutukawa trees that have been used to tie the building into the landscape. Large sweeping lawns and minimal planting have been adopted in some areas so not to detract from the stunning sea views, majestic pohutukawa and unique architecture. Additional semi-mature pohutukawa trees were transplanted to provide a framework for the garden to be designed around.

The Gabriel Residence is a modern home that nestles into the slope of the land. The house is constructed in unfinished hardwood timber and raw concrete, allowing it to soften into the coastal landscape and giving it the feel of a traditional hunting and fishing lodge. Inside, with the help of US interior designer James Radin, they were keen to develop a powerful sense of enclosure that would bring together the extended family holidaying there while allowing the spaces to become part of the unique mix of farm and seascape.

Furnished with an understated mix of modern pieces, New Zealand antiques and Pacific art, the interior is full of the natural tones and textures of wood, rich textiles, stone and metal. Pacific identity was central to Pip Cheshire’s creative focus, and he describes the house design as hovering “somewhere just south of Hawaii”. For the ceiling, they have used Tasmanian oak, for the flooring white oak sourced from New Hampshire, USA and for the decking and internal walls, spotted gum. The high, open, airy rooms were created to make the most of the views out and the luxurious bedrooms.

The house is designed around?a massive stone landscape wall?that emerges from the vineyard hill like a relic of a prior occupation of the land.?The idea of the relic takes its lead from Pip’s design philosophy with the stone tower at the Hilltop House.?Stones pulled from the fields and hills of the surrounding area are used to create the wall, which helps to firmly ground the house in its site and emphasise the importance of the house’s connection to the landscape around it.

The roof is designed to reinforce that sense of mass and permanence, whilst also allowing it to span the long distances necessary for the sliding doors to roll away open the house wide, opening the living space enough that the house transforms into a lushly furnished covered terrace. Cheshire says that when it is fully open, especially in those idyllic Bay of Islands months, “it really is like you are living on the deck of a boat and you’re outside rather than in a house.” This balances the dramatic nature of the stall. The interiors of the home are a collaboration with US-based Lucas Design Associates. Downstairs, the intimate bedroom spaces, stonework and lovely intrusions of soft light give the floor a subterranean feel. The ceiling is vaulted to help create a powerful sense of interior, in a room that is otherwise largely glass. Those vaults recall the ceilings of cellars but are made from timber planks more like wine barrels.

The interior aesthetic, envisioned by Terry Hunziker, is ‘mid Pacific’ with large-scale furniture and clearly defined interior space. The stairs and upper floors use Australian black bean, and the internal and external walls are Northland macrocarpa. The timbers and stone selected for internal and external use was chosen to avoid maintenance and to weather softly, becoming part of the seashore.

The canopy was added to the Boathouse to provide shelter from summer sun, rain showers and to allow entertaining to continue through the occasionally tempestuous weather. Highly polished tapering jarrah arches combine with stainless-steel brackets to suggest a little of the romance of timber yacht technology and soften the sharper line of the fabric and perimeter steel beams. The laminated beams allow considerable loads involved in the tensioning of the fabric to be transferred to the perimeter beams, achieving a low-rise volume free from internal supports.