This new rural home in Kaikoura has become a haven for a nature-loving couple and their eclectic family of pets.
Words Soraya Nicholas Photography Lisa Gane
When Lisa Moffat visited Kaikoura with her now husband, Wayne Shanks, she immediately fell in love with the wildlife and the environment. It didn’t take Wayne long to convince Lisa to move back with him and they soon bought a rickety old cottage on 1.6 hectares of land.
The cottage was quaint and liveable in the short term, but it was riddled with borer and well beyond saving.
“We had hoped to retain the cottage, even though we were building a new house, but the council made the entire process very difficult for us,” explains Lisa. They were allowed only one dwelling on the land, and even then the restrictions were incredibly tight, so the former Hapuku Cottage was demolished.
“One nice thing we did was salvage as much timber as possible thoughout, and reused it in our new home.” Bookcases and the main dining table all feature the recycled rimu, and were made by family member Craig Shanks.
Lisa’s pleased to have moved to Kaikoura, but she’s also delighted with her new sister-in-law. “Delisa designed our home, and she was incredible to work with. We were so lucky to have her.”
Architect Delisa Lovie is known for her clever residential designs, and after only a day of Lisa and Wayne showing her pictures from magazines and talking about what they wanted, she devised the perfect plan.
“My brief was to ‘rebuild’ the existing cottage. The actual building is completely new, although we have designed the main central living space to reflect a more traditional gabled form, clad with a macrocarpa rain screen, with a board-and-batten-clad lean-to to one side.
“The ‘guest wing’ is a more modern form, clad in corrugated iron and separated from the main living space by the entry foyer. The west-east orientation of the new cottage embraces majestic views from the seaward Kaikouras through to the wild Kaikoura coastline,” explains Delisa.
“My family and I had the pleasure of staying there for a week ourselves over winter and experienced first-hand how well the house worked and how comfortable and easy it was to live in.”
The couple wanted their home to reflect its rural environment, so they selected macrocarpa as the exterior cladding material. They prioritised eco decisions, such as incorporating solar water-heating, and the interior of the home was painted in different hues of green to engage with the garden.
“We have underfloor heating, which is powered by solar energy and our wetback fire,” says Lisa. This system reticulates hot water in pipes beneath the floor, keeping the house cosy over the cooler months.
Wayne and Lisa have a genuine love of their environment and they spend hours in the garden. “Roses love it here, so we’ve planted hundreds of them, but other trees and plants haven’t fared so well,” says Lisa.
However their newly planted orchard and grove of berries are flourishing, and they are avid vegetable gardeners too, eating plenty of home-grown produce over summer.
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