Sydney-based New Zealand architect Adele McNab has a distinct sensibility, which combines warmth and calm – a gentle sort of minimalism. When it came to renovating a much-altered rabbit warren of a Grey Lynn bungalow, she married modernist overtones with considered moves to create a home that hovers in the treetops, with incredible views of the Waitākere Ranges.
McNab’s design (as featured in Here 12, with a beautiful shoot by David Straight) rebuilt what had been a dark and dingy basement, and opened up the top floor to create two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a light-filled living area. The house can get high wind, so McNab added a wide covered deck, reached via full-height sliders – this buffers the wind, provides covered outdoor space over two levels and adds a gently, faintly modernist touch with shiplap cladding and narrow slot windows, floating on steel pilottis above the garden.
Inside, it's contemporary, but still feels like a bungalow. The original mātai floors were polished up and matching ones laid in the living area; tongue-and-groove ceilings in the living area give the place texture.
The layout feels open – even loose. The kitchen bench sits against the wall with no upper cupboards, augmented by a wall of storage including a hidden laundry. In the middle of the house, a new staircase sits beneath a skylight lined with the house’s original sarking boards, flooding the top level with light through finely framed glass panels. Downstairs: three more bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchenette. It’s a refined and generous house, with beautiful light and a great outlook.
It's now for sale with Ray White: your opportunity to buy a character home with a thoroughly modern, yet sensitive, update.
Treetops
23 Chamberlain Street
Grey Lynn, Tāmaki Makaurau
