Rural slice of Wairarapa heaven in running for house of the year

Country life and immaculately crafted memories gathered from around the world surround a Gladstone couple in their Wairarapa home now in the running as the 2007 House of the Year.
"We love the Wairarapa we both have roots here so we wanted a Wairarapa house created by local people using local materials as far as practicable," owners Ian St George and Kristy Macdonald said.
"We also wanted the house to feel old and settled in the landscape, so the colours, textures and shapes were important. But along with that we wanted to incorporate objects and ideas we had picked up over 15 years into its structure."
Among the ideas that are united in the home are shapes and details from English and Scottish country houses, he said, and French farmhouses and Tuscan villas.
Treasured objects used in construction included panelled rimu doors from a demolished Wellington bank, an Arts and Crafts movement mahogany fireplace, floor tiles from Cordoba, a handbasin the couple "brought back from Talavera de la Reina in our cabin baggage", wrought-iron door pulls from Montepulciano and Victorian porcelain doorknobs imported from the United States.
"These were all to be part of the fabric of the house. We wanted to recall good times when we looked at them."
The couple took their ideas to Greytown architect Max Edridge, Mr St George said, and "it was his genius that brought the whole thing together".
"Max listened and he talked, and he interpreted the more impossible visions into practical artistry," he said.
"In turn, he talked to Dave Borman and his team, who made it into a reality with the skill and finish you only get from real craftsmen.
"We got exactly what we wanted Mauriceville limestone for the stonework, recycled Tararua hard beech for the balustrades, local macrocarpa, Hinuera flagstones that gave us the browns and greens of the limestone cliffs and boulders and trees of these Maungaraki hills.
"Dave said at the end that it was a 'handmade house', and he's exactly right.
"It can't have been an easy house to build, because little was standard and a lot of old material and objects were incorporated.
"But it takes a difficult task to demonstrate true mastery in craftsmanship you cannot show the range of your skills by building a garage," Mr St George said.
"But if there was one thing that made this house work for us it was the communication.
"Everybody listened, talked, discussed, modified jealously-held concepts, tried to do something they hadn't done before, and reached amicable agreements.
"We felt involved in the creative process from start to finish.
"It works for us it's a beautifully-designed and crafted house, and it's also very much a warm, cosy, easy, used house, our house, full of familiarity, originality and personality."
Mr St George said the house was built expressly for use as "an extended family home" for children and grandchildren and the couple are privileged to be enjoying a home that has drawn such wide and pointed admiration.
"At this time of year with the daffodils and the lambs, fresh air and the sounds of birds, it is especially wonderful. Absolutely stunning."
The winner of the 2007 House of the Year is to be announced at a ceremony in Auckland on October 27.