Inside Pip Kay's Mount Maunganui house with a built-in slide

Pip Kay, 65, lives in one of the most unique houses in Mount Maunganui.

She bought the section nine years ago when it was a beige cottage-style bach, which she adored and painted yellow with splashes of teal.

The fence of the home became a community project. Photo / Quinn O'Connell

But when she decided to sell her 4ha Cambridge property of 30 years, demolish the bach and rebuild, the brief had one non-negotiable: a slide.

The inspiration for the standout feature - which takes people swiftly from the first floor down to the living room - was inspired by an emergency exit slide Kay remembered from her boarding school days.

Pip Kay made sure that the house she built had a slide. Photo / Mead Norton

"I had an opportunity, which I didn't think I'd have, and wondered if it was possible," she said of replicating the memorable feature in her home.

Kay said she used her slide every day, although recently her physio encouraged her to use the stairs more to aid her recovery from a knee injury.

She said sometimes the ride down was fast and other times slow, depending on the humidity and heat.

A patchwork "magic carpet" she made helped her slide as fast as possible.

Her grandchildren and neighbourhood kids had also spent many happy hours playing on the slide, and she said their laughter could be heard from the street.

Mount Maunganui's house with a slide. Photo / Quinn O'Connell

A fireman's pole had also been on the cards for the build but her family talked her out of it, she said with a laugh.

She wanted the home to have an artistic flair and a sense of humour.

Her desire to incorporate lemon, lime and raspberry colours was incorporated in stained glass windows at the front of her home and in the kitchen. She said the colourful windows glowed at night.

The two-storey, three-bedroom house had views of Mauao, two bathrooms, an open-plan living space and a studio for any project Kay felt inspired to dive into.

The entrance opens to a gallery of art on solid Venetian plaster walls, which also covers the living area and stairwell.

The entrance was designed to be a gallery. Photo / Quinn O'Connell

An upstairs sanctuary had a peep of the ocean through the pōhutukawa trees.

The kitchen lampshades were made of woven plastic bottles, a tiler was given full rein on her bathroom, and the outdoor pathway was made of construction waste.

The artistic fence turned into a community project when she was given a deadline to get it up, which was a great way to meet the neighbours, she said.

"There was no rhyme or reason," Kay said.

The exterior of the house with a slide. Photo / Quinn O'Connell

As much as she adored the home, it was not something she had always dreamed of. Rather, it was a product of changes throughout the build.

This "fluid" approach had always been her style, and the process was described as "a series of happy accidents".

The house took 15 months to complete, having been delayed by Covid-19, and was finished last year.

The slide takes a person from the second storey to the first-floor open-plan living area. Photo / Mead Norton

Calley Homes owner Johnny Calley said his first thought on being presented with Kay's brief was: "awesome".

Then it was straight to figuring out how to make it work.

He said it was his first time building a house with a slide, something he and his team were "super excited" about.

The house was essentially designed around the slide, which was tricky on a challenging corner site, he said.

"When you think of a slide you think of fun, so the slide brought a lot of fun and enjoyment to the project."

It also brought challenges.

Johnny Calley of Calley Homes. Photo / Supplied

The slide was custom-designed and engineered from scratch and there were no other examples to lean on which made the process trickier, he said.

Other challenges included making the exit and entry point of the slide on the building weathertight, as well as having it look like an architectural feature and not an "eyesore".

The house was also designed to sit on a timber-piled subfloor to ensure it could withstand coastal inundation surges and, in the case of a large-scale natural hazard, could be relocated entirely.

Calley said his favourite part of the build was working with Kay, who was brave enough to follow through with her creative ideas, he said.

"This home was not about sticking to the traditional script or following trends, it was about developing an organic process that evolved with creativity."

He said he would not bat an eye if he was asked to do it again.