66A Echo Valley, Tauriko, Tauranga. Photo / Supplied
Visitors driving through the hand-crafted wrought iron gates to this home in large grounds often mistake it for a 100-year-old villa.
That delights the owner of the 16-month-old home, Rose McGregor, who is a fan of Yves Saint Laurent's saying "Fashion fades; style is eternal."
Creating this home, women's wellness consultant Rose envisaged it would be elegant, timeless and supremely relaxing.
Rose lives here with her 17-year-old daughter Madison, corgi Pascal, miniature schnauzer Lulu and cats Ruby and Mia.
Her Auckland-based daughter Jamie visits frequently with Rose's first grandchild, Mollie, who is nearly 2.
Rose was delighted when she discovered this 3396sq m tract of land privately set down Echo Valley Way, featuring established magnolia, griselinia and shelter-belt hedging.
"It's a brilliant location because you feel like you're in the countryside but you're actually only two minutes' drive from Bethlehem town centre and eight minutes' drive from the city."
She sat down and shared her vision for the layout with architect Jon McAlpine, and was delighted he didn't change a thing.
She thoroughly enjoyed the project — working with experts such as Jon, builder Daman Beckett, Vogue Lighting and TKB kitchens who crafted the bespoke cabinetry throughout the home.
Character detailing around the home includes covered verandas and vintage bricks sourced from a Victorian-era Christchurch hotel recycled into entrance pillars and chimneys for indoor and outdoor fireplaces.
Modern creature comforts are equally important, such as house-wide under-floor heating and a heated pool beckoning just outside the home. A black front door within a grand portico style entrance welcomes visitors into an elegant foyer showcasing wooden floors and dados.
The home separates the master suite and other bedrooms in two wings. These are united by central living which flows out to a covered courtyard and open outdoor fireplace.
A 5.5-metre pitched ceiling through the kitchen-family area incorporating glazed panels amplifies spaciousness and delivers abundant light.
The sheltered central courtyard is one of Rose's favourite places, "both for summertime family entertaining and for a toasty ambiance by the fire in colder month".
The kitchen with scullery has a 3m-long wooden bench with bar seating embracing the stone island, with a long custom-made light above to match.
It features a Falcon stove and beautifully lit display cabinetry. Feature lighting is used throughout the home.
As well as the kitchen-family expanse there's a formal lounge with gas fireplace.
There's also a studio-office from which Rose runs her wellness business, with a big window admiring an outdoor fountain and an exquisitely outfitted powder room nearby.
One bedroom wing contains the master suite opening to outdoors.
It encompasses a walk-in wardrobe and a sizeable en suite featuring a freestanding bath, glassless walk-in shower and pale grey hexagonal tiles made from clay from Italy's Mt Etna, also used elsewhere.
Rose says: "I love lying in my bed in the morning, listening to the birdsong and looking out at the beautiful vista with the pool and all the grass."
The other wing houses three bedrooms (a cavity slider between two enhancing the ability for one to be a nursery), a polished family bathroom and an additional rumpus room.
The layout is completed by a separate laundry and an internal-access double garage.
Rose says: "My brief to landscaper Hamish Lane was to create a formal, tranquil look around the edges of the property and to attract birdlife, so we planted trees such as pohutukawa, pururi and titoki with weeping cherries for seasonal variation."
With Madison due to move to Auckland to study broadcasting at the end of the year the home will larger than Rose needs, so she is selling it.