SCHOOL ZONES:
Springbank School, Kerikeri High School.
CONTACT:
Christine Thomas, ph 021 560 008.
As you wind down the long driveway to Stephen Seuss' Kerikeri property, an industrial-style, high tech, contemporary home comes into view. It sits on a plateau at the bottom of the hill - a grand, shiny silver building clad in corrugated iron with a number of faces catching the light.
There are few clues that all is not what it seems. The solar panels, the water tanks and the generator could give the game away, but many rural homes have these without being off the grid.
However, this property is completely off-line, generating all of its own power and water, as well as much of the owner's food. It's a stylish eco-bolthole just a few minutes from Kerikeri village, designed as a sustainable home almost by accident.
"My wife found the property," Stephen says. "She had a dream of a piece of land with no neighbours and lots of places to walk, and she fell in love with it."
A sustainable eco-house hadn't been part of the original plan, although Stephen has always been interested in environmental issues. "The main catalyst was that Top Energy wanted a lot of money to bring power here, and that's why I decided to do it myself," he says.
Stephen's wife, a graphic artist, had an excellent eye for design and wanted an industrial look for the house. She loved the use of corrugated iron in New Zealand building, and also enjoyed collecting and recycling old building materials.
The two drew up the floor plan themselves, and enlisted the help of an architect friend to take it from there. "It went back and forth a few times and it took about a year to design."
The combination of graphic design skills and Stephen's practicality and environmental interests resulted in a house with a unique aesthetic. The exterior is all shiny, contemporary high-tech, but the interior is warm and rustic, in a variety of recycled materials.
The kitchen's splashback is a work of art created from tiles found in a pile of seconds. "Things can be seconds but still have a good personality," Stephen says. "My wife and daughter picked them and laid them out side by side to see how they would look before we brought them home."
In predominantly red and orange tones, the tiles match the red woodburning stove, which shares space with a stainless steel gas oven and hob. A windowed red glass and steel garage door, inspired by fire station doors, opens the kitchen with its handcrafted, rustic breakfast bar to the outdoors.
Recycled materials also feature in the living room, where the same selection process was applied to the old timber planks with which the ceiling is sarked. In the two-bedroom apartment upstairs the floors are of hand-picked recycled timber.
Image 1 of 6: 286 Mangakaretu Road, Kerikeri.
It's hard to believe that such a big house could run entirely on its own power, and the fact that it does is testament to Stephen's technical knowledge, his practicality and his ability to quickly grasp new concepts. "I didn't know how much power a house needed, so I just kept adding to it until we had enough. The secret is to make your own energy and then use less of it."
In retrospect, the house turned out better than he expected. It is warmer in winter and cooler in summer than he thought it would be. "But perhaps a little too big," he acknowledges. "My dream was really to have a small house by the water with a boat out front, and I'm hoping to do that next."
