It is very rare that a house comes on to the market that is more than the sum of its parts. There are houses which are a cool combination of vintage cottage and of-the-moment mid-century additions. There are houses with lush pockets of bush in suburban neighbourhoods. There are properties with outbuildings that could be put to multiple uses. But it is rare that this package comes with something else: a provenance of one of New Zealand's leading studio potters, Peter Stichbury.
Peter and his wife, Diane, are finally selling their family house of almost 50 years. Peter is 87. He stopped potting a few years ago and dismantled his kilns, and the couple have finally acknowledged that they no longer need the weight of a large family house on a huge section. When they bought the property - nearly an acre carved off a larger five-acre farm on Great South Rd on the edge of Manurewa - it was a ramshackle 1928 cottage and a series of farm outbuildings. Peter was an art lecturer at Ardmore Teachers' College, but wanted more space to spread out with his work. The couple wanted to bring students into a real working pottery, to do intensive workshops then display the work. They also had two children - a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old baby - to house when they bought in 1963.
"We had £190 in our savings which was just enough to pay the stamp duty. The whole place was £5500. People thought we were mad," recalls Peter. "It was stucco and concrete, but it wasn't lined. There were gaps between the floorboards and the linings would flap in and out in the wind," says Diane. But with an artist's budget and an artist's eye, Peter knew what he could do to make the property work - even though it took him some time to renovate the house.
"Some days I used to walk around with my knife and pan to try to find somewhere to start cooking dinner," says Diane.
