A Manor of Speaking
Photography by Tony Potter
Styling by Justine Wilson
Who needs luxurious hotels, relaxing day spas or weekends away when you have a stunning house like this, set in picturesque gardens and with never-ending views of lush farmland?
It's no wonder that Kieran and Ngarie, the owners of this property, have cut more then one holiday short to come home to this magnificent abode. "When we travel, we can't help but compare where we're staying to what we've got at home," says Kieran, "and usually find we cut our trips short, as it's so much better here than any hotel!"
Although it looks like it's been here for a century or more, the house is in fact only a few years old. "I originally bought the 30-acre plot of what was farmland around eight years ago," Kieran continues, "and in 2004 we moved in, after the house took over two years to build. Then the landscaping took another year."
The design was inspired by a sketch they found on the Internet of a house that reminded them of a traditional plantation-style manor in the American south. Although they liked it, however, they wanted a distinct French-provincial feel to it, so they combined the two.
The planning and construction stage was where a lot of the vital attention to detail was done. "The whole place follows a story from the detailed architecture, both external and internal, to the landscape design and, of course, the interior," says Kieran. "It's the details that were important to us, such as the dental cornicing on the exterior eaves which is reproduced inside, and on all the cabinetry."
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