Former All Black coach Sir Graham Henry presented the supreme trophy to Jeanine and Warren Johnson of Versatile Wanganui. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
Former All Black coach Sir Graham Henry presented the supreme trophy to Jeanine and Warren Johnson of Versatile Wanganui. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
Being partners in life and business has brought another reward for Warren Johnson and Jeanine Hooper.
The couple are joint owners of Versatile Wanganui - and a family home their company built in Wanganui has been named supreme house of the year within the group.
They received their award fromformer All Black coach Sir Graham Henry at the Versatile annual conference recently.
"We actually entered three houses in that part of the competition as well as three garages. It was a great win, especially among your peers," Mr Johnson said.
This award comes on the heels of their business being name franchise of the year in 2011. The winning home started out as one of the Versatile floor plans but the owners rejigged things to suit their purposes. Their ideas were then sent through the Versatile design teams (they have them in Auckland and Christchurch) and the final designs drafted.
"We've got a catalogue of homes people can select from but really every home now is being built for the customers' needs. So the home will fit the customer and what they want," Ms Hooper said.
The other challenge in this particular build was that the home had to fit on a section of only 592sq m - and that included about 70sq m of driveway.
"It's actually a four-bedroom room, one of them with an en suite. There's an entertainment room and stand-alone double garage so the home certainly fills up the section," Mr Johnson said.
The house has a floor area of 179sq m and while most of it is finished in brick, some of the walls are finished in Coloursteel linear weatherboard cladding.
Ms Hooper said customers coming to them for a house don't have to work off a Versatile plan template: "Anyone can come to us and we can build for them."
The Satherley home in Wanganui was described as an example of great workmanship and exceptional design.PHOTO/SUPPLIED
They bought the Wanganui franchise in 2003 and Mr Johnson said their success was down to "being competitive and staying competitive".
"There are some designs in our Classic range that use Coloursteel cladding that are really competitively priced. In the bigger homes we're still competitive but it depends on what the customer's budget is," he said.
They currently have six contract builders working for them as well as a salesperson.
"But our success could not have been achieved without the awesome team of contractors and sub-contractors that work with us," Mr Johnson said.
The Versatile brand began with garages and sheds about 40 years ago and is now part of the Spanbild group which operates in New Zealand and Australia. The original company was started 40 years ago in Christchurch by the Gee family.
Jon-Paul Ferris, general manager of Versatile Homes and Buildings, said the winning Satherley house in Wanganui was an outstanding example "of great workmanship and exceptional design".
"It beat all other entries into the house of the year because Versatile Wanganui produced a house that we can all be proud of and one that reflects our commitment to quality homes for all New Zealanders," Mr Ferris said.
"Warren, Jeanine and the rest of their team delivered a home that exceeded the Satherleys' expectations. The true test of a successful project is whether or not the customer would use us again, and in this case this is most certainly true," he said.
