NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Business / Companies / Construction

Holiday simplicity brings building challenges

Anne Gibson
By Anne Gibson
Property Editor·NZ Herald·
29 Dec, 2010 04:30 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Inside the Mann mansion. Photo / Supplied

Inside the Mann mansion. Photo / Supplied

When American advertising guru Fred Mann and his wife Kitty decided to build a Kiwi bach in the Bay of Islands, they picked an Australian architect.

The Manns, of San Francisco, now have a minimalist holiday home, 15 minutes on a sealed road out of Russell, designed by James Grose
of BVN Architecture (Bligh Voller Nield) and built by award-winning St Benedicts St-based Lindesay Construction of Newton.

The Manns found Grose from an article in an American magazine and arranged to meet him in Auckland to talk about the project.

Te Whare Hoiho won Philip Lindesay the 2008 Master Builder's House of the Year and Grose an Institute of Architects award.

"This deceptively simple-looking house presented huge building challenges," said Philip Lindesay. "It was built to be functional enough to lock up and leave for months, yet beautiful enough to be considered a sculpture. Features like double glazing, wool insulation and sustainable materials mean Te Whare Hoiho is also easy on the environment."

The house has wide ocean views of Roberton Island and the many islands scattered in the Bay of Islands. It features on the Luxury Adventures website at $500 a night off-peak based on four guests and is on many other holiday home sites.

Te Whare Hoiho is one of a new breed of kiwi baches, far more upmarket than most of the country's 1.4 million dwellings.

These houses are taking style to a new level, resulting in new-builds on Waiheke Island taking out a large section of the Auckland institute awards announced in October and including sailing champion Brad Butterworth's new $3.9 million "bach" on a golden stretch of sand below the island's main settlement of Oneroa.

Even the judges noted Waiheke hideaways this year: Patterson Associates was praised for giving the Butterworths a "theatrical, sensuous, beautifully proportioned" house built of local multicoloured rock with rotating fins on its upper level to open it to the sea.

Mitchell & Stout Architects' Waiheke house was praised as strange and compelling, sitting in a paddock surrounded by manuka, "shifting between landscape, art and architecture". Sumich Chaplin Architects' Waiheke house was described as a shift away from the bach, and Fearon Hay Architects' Waiheke house was praised for being very new and different.

The Mann house near Russell is dominated by steel and glass and Grose acknowledges he drew partly from Australian traditions and a demure colour palette.

BVN has a big reputation here, picked by ASB property manager Derek Shortt to work with New Zealand architectural firm Jasmax on the internationally award-winning C:Drive, ASB's building at Albany. Shortt also picked Grose to design fellow tough box Sovereign House at Takapuna, also for ASB and a backdrop for office scenes in TV One's This Is Not My Life series.

The institute described Te Whare Hoiho as "sitting on the edge of the vast Pacific, this simple house - a kind of primitive platform - succeeds in articulating itself inside and out in the presence of what is an overwhelming, wonderful landscape. In the Miesian Murcutt tradition the structure remains in its elemental state and is enclosed with metal sheeting reminiscent of the original settlers' agricultural buildings."

From his townhouse Auckland office overlooking Upper Queen St, Philip Lindesay, wife Leslie and project manager Hamish Craig tell of the challenges of building this house at Paroa Bay near Russell.

Lindesay cites Grose's words to hammer home the point: "Don't underestimate how making something incredibly simple is monumentally more difficult," Grose said.

"The difficulty was in joining steel, glass, aluminium and corrugated iron together so it looks beautiful and doesn't leak and we achieved that. The corrugated iron was extremely difficult to apply and get it to look nice. Everything had to be absolutely perfect.

"Everything was pre-cut. The holes had to be absolutely perfect within a millimetre so the joinery could fit in.

"This house has a veranda at one end which looks out to sea and one of the reasons Fred was attracted to the site was he could see where Captain Cook first landed in the Bay of Islands," Lindesay said.

Discover more

Lifestyle

Let there be lights

17 Dec 04:30 PM
Lifestyle

Battle is on to save the house that Conan Doyle built

17 Dec 01:57 AM
Property

Herald Homes of the Year: 350 Richmond Rd

29 Dec 04:30 PM
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Construction

Construction

'A substantial breach': Builder's work under scrutiny after installing leaky gazebo

04 Jul 04:00 AM
Premium
Business|economy

18,800 people booked for NZICC; anaesthetists, ophthalmologists the latest

03 Jul 10:39 PM
Property

'Special ceiling': sun and moon art adorn new Auckland train station

03 Jul 03:00 AM

There’s more to Hawai‘i than beaches and buffets – here’s how to see it differently

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Construction

'A substantial breach': Builder's work under scrutiny after installing leaky gazebo

'A substantial breach': Builder's work under scrutiny after installing leaky gazebo

04 Jul 04:00 AM

The builder argued there were defects with the gazebo design but the tribunal disagreed.

Premium
18,800 people booked for NZICC; anaesthetists, ophthalmologists the latest

18,800 people booked for NZICC; anaesthetists, ophthalmologists the latest

03 Jul 10:39 PM
'Special ceiling': sun and moon art adorn new Auckland train station

'Special ceiling': sun and moon art adorn new Auckland train station

03 Jul 03:00 AM
Premium
$66m repair bill for Auckland apartments sparks court action

$66m repair bill for Auckland apartments sparks court action

02 Jul 11:28 PM
From early mornings to easy living
sponsored

From early mornings to easy living

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP