At Home: A solid base

When you're a reporter on current affairs series 60 Minutes, you may understand how to shape and relate a story to fill an hour's worth of television, but you never know what's around the corner.

In her role on the TV3 show, Sarah Hall's life can change at the drop of a hat: "One day I might be sitting in Auckland, the next I could be dispatched anywhere from Bangkok to Dubai."

Imperative, then, that she counterbalance such global flightiness with a well-anchored base. In this respect, Sarah's emotional and practical foundations are centred on her husband, Grant Malins, who picks up the organisational reins and keeps a canny eye on two teenage daughters who still live at home. Bricks-and-mortar stability is provided by the modernised Grey Lynn villa they share.

As an award-winning journalist, Sarah is adept at unearthing details that are strong selling points. When she discovered this villa was renovated by interior designer Sonya Cotter and her husband Richard, she knew the workmanship would be high quality and the materiality superb.

"Plus I loved the design of the home," says Sarah. "It had an adult quarter upstairs, including a deck off the master bedroom with an amazing view of Ponsonby."

She was also swayed by potential uses for the two-storeyed studio in the back garden but admits: "We'd totally lose control of the girls if we let them live out there!"

The warming, sound-deadening duo of thickened glass and green batts sealed the deal. "It's so amazing to live in a house that is insulated properly."

Underfoot, concrete floors were perfect for the couple's dogs, schnoodles Billy and Archie.

"I'm lucky I married someone who loves dogs as much as I do," says Sarah.

"In my previous house I was always cleaning the wooden floors, whereas here I can get away with it for a lot longer."

Which is just as well when you can't reliably schedule a vacuuming session. Before you believe Hall is all purist practicality, let's dispel the myth. While her news hound side insists on facts, her creative alter ego gets an equal say.

Before working in radio and joining TV3 in 1997, Sarah studied visual arts in New York. Perhaps that's why she has a hankering for painterly possessions.

"I'm a young collector," she laughs. "I've always liked beautiful things and I don't understand shares, so I've convinced myself that I buy art as an investment."

A 70s velvet-framed Kristin Zambucka portrait of a Maori woman was inherited from her mother and hangs in the living room.

"It was in our house when I was growing up and I always wanted it," Sarah explains. "They're becoming very collectable now."

The interesting faces continue in a work by young artist Sofia Minson, of Ngati Porou descent, that holds court in the dining room.

"It's of Sofia's grandmother - I love portraiture even though it's not fashionable."

Then there's the dreamlike black-and-white Seraphine Pick painting that she bought last year, a colourful mathematical pattern by Sara Hughes and a delicately sculpted blown-glass paddle by Luke Jacomb.

Sarah's latest splurge is a Neil Dawson artwork in screen-printed metal. "I went to the bank, cap in hand, to pay for it," she grimaces.

Confined mainly to the open-plan living zone, but spilling out into the hallway where a Chloe Masters torso hangs near an original Mao poster, the artwork has both history and currency. It's similar to the furnishings, which combine old and new. English antiques such as the oak dining table and chairs mix with a pair of modernist Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs and a contemporary David Shaw sofa.

It's a conflated look, which echoes Sarah's diverse interests. When you work on stories as disparate as she does, it comes with the territory.

"I'm also a big book collector," she says. A wall of shelving was built in a little alcove in the hallway. The alcove doubles as an "office" and accommodates her bookish finds.

Her favourite treasure is a limited-edition volume on the work of Peter Beard. Married to Francis Bacon's daughter, this well-connected New York-born photographer, diarist and artist fell in love with Africa in the late 1950s and the slip-case-covered tome is a collage of characters and scenes that are alternately stunning and shocking.

"The book is a work of art in itself. I sometimes bring it out at parties and find people upstairs with it laid out on the carpeted floor looking at it for hours."

American politics, too, is a magnetic draw-card for Sarah. When she was sent to follow Sarah Palin through Ohio and Kentucky, she collected electioneering badges of both Republicans and Democrats. These she has pinned on to a Stars and Stripes draped over a mannequin.

"In some ways I admire America's story. It's the one country that took everyone in and is so multi-cultural - something we don't have (and lack) in New Zealand."

Still, when dealing with impromptu dinner invitations from members of the Ku Klux Klan or interviewing a New Zealand fraudster wanted by the FBI in Dubai is all in a day's work, it's a relief to come home.

That's when Sarah can spend time in the kitchen, to dream up new ways to serve the catch of the day. ("Grant is a diver so we cook a lot of seafood," she explains.) Or enjoy a glass of wine in front of the open fireplace.

"My husband and a friend embark on firewood-gathering missions all over Auckland. He's even considered renting a storage unit to put the overflow in!"

Swimming in the now firmly unheated pool, though, is relegated to a summer past-time.

"We heated it one winter but the power bill was so huge that never again. It's a shame we don't have solar panels."

It's likely to be a toss-up as to which item on the wish-list gets the funding: another work of art or a cheaper heating method? Somehow, it seems the aesthete will prevail.