Denizen visits a Jessop Architects renovation on the Whangaparāoa Peninsula, where a young couple's first home has been quietly evolved rather than replaced.
Stanmore Bay still keeps the easy rhythm of a classic New Zealand seaside settlement — creosote-stained baches, mature pōhutukawa and a streetscape a comfortable distance from the pull of the city. It is the kind of place you arrive at slowly, and that pace shaped the brief for this project.
Bought not long after university, the original cottage had been a young couple's first home. The task, when it came, was not to erase what they had fallen for but to let it grow up. Rather than overwrite the cottage, the additions thread through the site with deference to the mature pōhutukawa, whose canopy still shapes the approach and the outlook.
A sheltered north-facing courtyard on the inland side is the project's quiet masterstroke. Where many coastal houses commit entirely to the water, Stanmore gives itself two considered aspects — the sea on one side, a protected garden room on the other — and doubles the house's usable life through the shoulder seasons.
Inside, sandy stone tones ground the interiors alongside warm timbers and the kind of deft joinery that rewards a second look. The result is a family home that still reads as a first home loved into its second chapter — a renovation that understands the difference between evolving a house and replacing it.
Read the full feature at Denizen: https://www.thedenizen.co.nz/design/powersurge/
