REVIEW: “There is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boat sheds.” That’s a messed-with quote from The Wind in the Willows.
And it’s what I hoped we might be in for in this week’s Grand Designs NZ build. Perhaps a character cabin on stilts out over the water.
But no, homeowner Charles Webster is just sorting out the boat shed at the bottom of his garden on the Herne Bay waterfront (priciest real estate in the country). It’s a property that has been in his family for three generations – nearly 100 years. Charles has lived here all his life, but now he has retired and is selling up. That’s a big move.
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Charles and Yvonne Webster spent seven years on their $4.5 million croissant-shaped retirement home in Tapu, Coromandel.
Charles, a civil engineer, and new wife Yvonne, an early childhood educator, (we see them exchange vows in the garden) are literally off to a new beginning, on a hilltop in Tapu on the western side of the Coromandel Peninsula.
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Charles has designed a massive, crescent-shaped house that wraps around the site, like a giant croissant. Or a spaceship. It’s huge and complex, with vast living spaces.
Vanity project planned for years
What we have here, on this the final Grand Designs NZ show for the year, is an owner with a huge vanity project that he is determined to see through – he has planned this for years.
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Grand Designs NZ present Tom Webster with Charles and Yvonne Webster at the grand reveal.
Presenter Tom Webster comes to visit the couple on site, five years after we first meet them, and we see they’ve swapped life in the waterfront home in blue-ribbon Herne Bay for a converted goat shed. But, hey, they are happy, despite the fact it has been sooo long, and there’s not much to show for the build.
Tellingly, Charles says: “We don’t want this build to rule our lives.” (Spoiler alert; it does.)
But already he has had challenges getting consents, and also finding a builder prepared to tackle the massive, curved, concrete-block house. The concept drawings show 70 huge, parallel trusses (all different) curving around to support the giant corrugated steel roof, which will extend right down to the ground on the “outside” of the crescent.
Tom Webster thinks the design is “wild and outrageous”. He’s right. The design doesn’t seem to have any connection to the land, whatsoever. It looks like it a section sliced through a giant satellite dish up on the hill. What will the locals think?
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The landscaping has yet to be done.
We hear the earthworks, which were expected to cost $70,000 to $80,000 ballooned out to $584,000. Ouch. Charles has already spent $1.2 million. And the house not even out of the ground.
But he finds a local builder Rudolph Turk, who is happy to take it on, with a single apprentice, which seems crazy. But Rudolph wants to be able to oversee everything. He cannot give a timeframe for the build, because it is so complex.
Engineers fine-tune the design. Charles doesn’t want an architect involved early on, because he doesn’t want them suggesting alternatives. This is his dream, and he is pursuing it. Fair enough.
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There’s a more organic feel to the interior, thanks to the sculptural, vaulted ceiling featuring kauri salvaged from the old boathouse in Herne Bay. It references the hull of an upturned boat.
It takes two-to-three days to build a single truss (in advance), because each one has a slightly different geometry. Unsurprisingly, the build is presenting numerous challenges, and delays.
“The longer this process has been going, the more tired we have become,” Yvonne says.
We’re 17 minutes (or 5+ years) into this episode and the ground-floor slab hasn’t even been poured. When that finally happens, it’s not without its hassles and hold-ups. But once it’s done, Charles and Yvonne finally believe they are on the way.
Builder quits after four years
But no. After four years on the job, builder Rudolph quits over a disagreement with Charles about how they should build the complex geometry of the ring beam. Charles says it’s a disaster as he is losing all Rudolph’s expertise, deep knowledge and planning for the build.
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There is a long, curved scullery behind the kitchen with extensive storage.
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Charles expressed surprise at how dramatic the ceiling appeared in the main bedroom.
They find a company in Thames with a much larger team to finish the build. “It’s a big kitset. We’re just here to put it together,” says head builder Craig Bell, who also admits he had a few sleepness nights before accepting the job.
From drone shots, we can see just how big the house is – it dwarfs the workers. Yvonne says they want to get 70 people in there. They could double that. But they do only have two bedrooms and small hobby room – the scale has more to do with the roof size.
However, Yvonne is over the build – it is taking too long, about four years longer than expected. She is now saying she would be happy in a cabin with a Portaloo. That would have been oh-so-much cheaper to build (and they could have been in there six years ago.)
The house looks amazing when the trusses finally go up, like the skeleton of some huge armadillo, but then the skin goes on. And the whole thing changes. Now it resembles an upturned boat. I feel they lost something there.
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There is two of everything in the ensuite bathroom.
The roofers have come down from Auckland. Charles says they are costing him $15 a minute. That’s gotta hurt.
Finally, they move in
Finally, it’s the reveal, and Webster drives up the hill where the house sits with its huge curved roof shell.
With acres of grey Colorsteel roofing swooping down to the ground, this house is monolithic, but not exactly beautiful. It doesn’t help that there is no landscaping yet. Instead, we see a lot of concrete. An awful lot of concrete. Like a huge soundshell (so many comparisons).
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The guest bedroom faces away from the view.
But, inside it’s a different story. The very high timber-lined ceilings also swoop and intersect in a very sculptural manner. It’s dramatic, and quite organic. The timber sarking is kauri salvaged from Charles’ dad’s old boat shed, complete with original nail holes. (That character is what’s missing on the outside.)
The house does appear to wrap around its inhabitants, but it doesn’t look cosy, nor intimate, however, because of the size. It echoes, and it doesn’t feel like a hideaway, but perhaps that was never the intention.
Everything is on a grand scale. The $1 million garage is big enough for 10 cars (they have two).
This was always meant to be a forever home for Charles and Yvonne. Again, that’s their choice – to upsize when most retirees are doing the opposite.
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The entry to the house is tucked between the sweeping walls.
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And this is where the eye turns – to the magnificent view that makes it all worthwhile.
Charles now has his dream, and there’s always the glory of that magnificent view. “For me, it feels like this is a celebration,” he says.
He is wonderfully honest about how he felt throughout the build – the times he felt a sense of futility and failure, and he worried when it affected Yvonne negatively. “I had positivity, but I hated doing that to her,” he says.
And the cost? “A huge amount more than we thought”. The land cost $1 million, and the house cost “a widow’s mite”. “It took everything we had. We both tipped all our resources into it. All up (including land) it was $4.5 million.”
“How does that make you feel?” asks Webster.
“Empty,” Charles says. But he believes it has been worth it – he says they see the future as “just fabulous”.
Summary
- Seven years is too much out of your life to spend building a house
- It’s Coromandel – we would love to have seen a closer connection to the beautiful natural landscape
- A fitting finale to a great series, beautifully edited
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