How personal can a spec home be, really, built as they are with intent to sell? This home in Ōtautahi Christchurch tests the limits on several fronts. Owner Nick Cowdy has a long history with the place and called on his partner Prue Johnstone, of Johnstone Callaghan Architects, to reimagine the site. By the time the house was completed and ready for market, the couple knew it intimately.

Nick had bought the property before he met Prue, and spent years living in the original villa – later demolished due to earthquake damage – so he was well versed in the realities of the site and the potential of a new house. “In my mind, through briefing, I was solving every problem,” he recalls. “Mike [Callaghan] and I are the architects,” says Prue, adding that she’s also, peripherally, a client. “The whole design period went through our office like quite a typical process, with Nick being identified as the client.” They went from first sketches in August 2021, to finished house in October 2024. In that time, they also built a family. “We had two kids during,” Nick says. “From start to finish.”

Having moved some of their furniture and art in to stage the space for photography, they also enjoyed a few stints staying in the house. “It is such a pleasure to live there,” says Prue. They tried not to get too comfortable, but, she adds, “I think Nick would move in there tomorrow and not move out.” He concedes, “I probably should have sold it by now, but I’ve dragged my heels.”

Throughout the design process, Prue sat firmly on the architectural side of things, comfortable to challenge Nick’s point of view. The dynamic went both ways. “Nick is someone who actually values design, and even interrogated us,” adds Mike. “It was quite a defined brief.” All in all, there wasn’t much need for compromise. “From the time of briefing to running through costings, everything was pretty much aligned,” says Nick.

Prue also credits Nick’s passion for architecture and experience with the site. As a real estate agent, fluent in the needs of people looking for a home in the city, he also had a clear vision and boundaries. While the old house relied on a shared driveway, Nick wanted direct access, so the garage was relocated from the north to the south. He also wanted a purposeful entry. Stepping inside, the joinery and skylight communicate a sense of arrival. The handsome wooden coat nook is a welcoming, thoughtful detail that speaks to the wider vision of the house, one of family living, human-scale design and that practical Christchurch sensibility.

Materially, what you see is what you get. “If you see timber, it’s timber. If you see tiles, it’s tiles,” Nick says. Wood is used strategically throughout to define doors, skirtings, architraves, ceiling batons and sarking. The garage and front doors are cedar. “From the client perspective, the key was natural timber,” says Mike. Structural posts are macrocarpa, chosen for its performance, while inside, American red oak was used for its accessibility and look, nodding to the meranti used in those original mid-century builds. “We also wanted to focus on the actual materiality, so where we’re using timber, using something that we didn’t have to stain and coat,” explains Prue. Where oil is used, it enhances the timber’s natural qualities.

Although he’s a fan of the Christchurch School, Nick wanted the house to be a nod rather than a replica. The low-slung gabled form is an echo of the period, while efficient and cost-effective brick cladding stands in for traditional concrete blocks. “In Christchurch, there’s a lot of brick being used at the moment, and in really interesting ways,” says Prue. Here, it extends to fencing and planters. “We tried to go back to those first principles, and that mid-century design. Finding economic ways to do things was at the heart.”

Nick also wanted to keep the layout to a single level, to appeal to the widest possible audience – from families to retirees. A low-lying form was also sympathetic to the neighbourhood, and the architects were happy to lean into that. Keeping to a single level brings the build down to a human scale. It’s a defining aspect of the Christchurch School, which was about “making these spaces that feel of a scale and quality that people can live in – not too grand, and intimate” says Prue.

Indoor-outdoor flow, and a garden outlook for the bedrooms were also key. Johnstone Callaghan Architects did the hardscaping, while Inside-Out Design took care of the planting plan. It’s loose, organic and low maintenance, rather than traditional. Out here, you’ll also find Nick’s longed-for wood-burning oven. A lighter and more compact gas fire was installed inside. There’s also ducted heating and the house is wired for solar. This living-focused practicality has wide appeal, and Prue is confident many of the ideas will translate to other projects. “Maybe not in the same configuration,” she says, “but affording people all of these unique spaces, a connection to the landscape, materials that are durable, and building on a human scale.”

They’re also fond of the details. Nick points out the threshold dividing the bedroom wing and the main living space. “It’s a really beautiful piece of timber,” he says. “It gives a real feeling of density.” It also communicates the character of that old villa, gone now. They’ve fitted a lot in its place on the long, slim site. The 250-square-metre home contains four bedrooms, multiple living spaces and a separate laundry. While they could have built two or even three houses on that piece of land, that wasn’t in Nick’s plan. “It was getting it built as much as a passion project as to drive past it in years to come and be like, ‘Oh we built that house and it’s enduring and looking good,’” he says.

That it’s hard to step away is proof of concept: this human-scale house with ties to past forms, calibrated for living now. “It’s a beautiful home to live in, to entertain, to be in the summer and the winter,” says Prue. “It’s been amazing, and the proof is in the fact that Nick’s dragging his heels to move on from this.”

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