Southern Life

When you have four boys to chase after, it’s important the design of your Central Otago homestead is as tailored to your busy family as it is to the breath-taking alpine landscape.

Building platforms in this part of the world are hard-earned, and fitting snug into the slope to get the best of nature almost took its toll on the parties involved. It’s a good thing they persevered.

The impact is instant as the smooth, snaking driveway ends at walls of schist and vertical shiplap cedar with a seductively masculine feature if you’re lucky enough to have the drive-through garage remote.

Out the other side the toys go and after the dirt is flung, there’s a mudroom with gear cupboards for each family member linking shrewdly to the family bathroom and laundry.

It doesn’t end there for the boys and a large games room sits beneath their four bedrooms, through the hidden scullery and deposited away from the central dining and kitchen area.

If functionality in this Steve Humpherson design is top notch and in sympathy with the clientele then so are the materials to the land.