Rural Home of the Year 2025 | Whareora by Dorrington Atcheson Architects
Mid-century with a modern interpretation, this family home just outside of Whangarei is a jewel-box on an expansive country site — striking terracotta against a backdrop of verdant green.
Architecture is a game of constraints. As Frank Lloyd Wright so poetically put it, “The human race built most nobly when limitations were greatest.” Set parameters often prompt creative thinking, but this large, flat, rural section just outside Whangārei had few geophysical confines.
There were no neighbours to screen, and no real focal drawcards. The clients — positively engaged and endlessly patient — were gems. Did Sam Atcheson of Dorrington Atcheson Architects find all this freedom tricky? He shrugs. “There was no right or wrong way to design the house but there was an obvious entry, so I used it as a starting point,” he explains.
The 287-square-metre home slices red against a green backdrop. Clad in tawny brick, it’s a somewhat surprising intervention in the countryside. Owners Paula Harold and Stu Delamare purchased the land in 2002, constructed a shed to live in, and intended to build. But life has its own plan. The couple ended up buying the neighbour’s house, where they stayed for the next 14 years.
Throughout the two decades since they moved north from Auckland, their love of mid-century architecture has grown. “My dad designed and built our family house in the late ’60s. It was open plan, with a flat roof and cedar clad with some internal brick. I grew up thinking that was the norm,” remembers Paula.
Even though the couple had a lot of time to plan and think, their architect had a couple of surprises up his sleeve. “We gave Sam mood boards of the overall look we wanted — but none included the roofline we ended up with,” says Paula.
The staggered gull wing is an angular attribute that lends personality to the form from the exterior; inside, it lifts off a framework of exposed beams, bringing height and light into the picture. The beams, 1.8 metres apart, set up an overhead rhythm in the living spaces and act as a horizontal datum traversing the walls to the exterior. “It’s a device I had seen used in two of [architect] Ron Sang’s houses that we had the pleasure to renovate,” explains Sam.
Paula and Stu, a draughtsperson and land surveyor respectively, revelled in the construction process and sourced greenheart timber from a local merchant for the beams, which span nine metres. It’s a glorious rustic hardwood often used in bridges and wharves. “During the build, the beams were exposed for a while and had silvered off. We water-blasted them to peel back to the original colour,” explains Stu.
Red-brick walls, which wrap around the kitchen and main bedroom block, capture the mid-century vibe beautifully — although these, too, weren’t on the A-list of materials. The couple, who had asked for something low maintenance, took some convincing. They flew to the brickery in Christchurch and then embarked on a sampler tour of houses that showcased the cladding. “We were those creepy people hanging out in our car across the road,” laughs Stu. They still weren’t sure, until one day, when visiting Paula’s mum and dad in her childhood home, realisation dawned. They could do this.
Sam’s programme for the three-bedroom dwelling is the now-commonplace layout, in which the living zone acts as a buffer between the main suite and the family/guest wing — where the owners’ young adult son gets to hang out.
What is not standard is the atmosphere evoked: the cool (in both senses of the word) presence that the interesting material palette and furnishings — so evocative of the modernist period — bring. Although Sam admits the scale and robustness of this home are not typical of New Zealand’s mid-century vernacular, there are motifs that are: the post-and-beam skeleton, the floating nature of the roofs, and the recurring built-in aspects.
In the kitchen, designed to display a collection of bright Cathrineholm enamelware, a picture window is a frame to the forest reserve, and clerestories welcome the morning sun. Paula, who is CAD competent, spent hours drawing up the design, which features Tasmanian blackwood cabinetry and an island of white finger tiles.
A window seat, with a colourful squab she upholstered herself, is a companionable place to sit and survey the cook at work. An east-facing deck flows out from the adjacent dining room, while the lounge to the north is served by another sheltered al fresco space.
With these different cardinal points covered, there’s always a place to sit and chew the fat, no matter the wind or the time of day. With little landscaping — save for a couple of planter boxes crammed with mother-in-law’s tongue and a few found boulders pocketing the lawn, the conversation often turns to the most dynamic part of the view: the sheep.
The couple own 45 ewes of a once-feral breed that originated on Arapaoa Island, and consider them cute lawn-mowers. Some they have bottle fed and named — raising them when their son was competing in school agricultural days. For others, who don’t get a name, their days are numbered.
When Paula arrives home, the long, streamlined carport, which not only segues with the mid-century style of the building but also means there is no place for Stu to store extraneous stuff, is often partly occupied by her dad’s 1970s gold Mercedes. This ‘old within the new’ is a nostalgic-modern tableau that gives her a little flick of pleasure each time.
This would have been a very different house if the couple had built all those moons ago. It may have taken 20 years to get here, but the timing was just right.
Words: Claire McCall
Images: Simon Devitt
Project Credits
Architecture — Dorrington Atcheson Architects
Build — Jameson Builders
Interiors — Roum Studio
Landscape — Seaside Landscapes
Cladding — Canterbury Clay Bricks
Wood Oil — Dryden WoodOil
Coloured Concrete — PeterFell
Citation
Displaying scale and craft that was completely related to its rural landscape. Its plan — which included several unexpected moments — works beautifully for two people or a larger family while exuding a lovely softness. A commendable collaboration between designer and client toward a highly crafted and memorable rural escape.
