An award-winning waterfront home several doors down from the mansion being built by ZURU Toys billionaire Anna Mowbray and husband Ali Williams has hit the market for sale.
The striking four-bedroom luxury property at 30 Rawene Avenue, in Auckland’s Westmere, was built by Stevens Lawson Architects for sound healer Jason Friedlander and won the NZIA New Zealand Award for Architecture in 2018.
The house has a 2021 CV of $10 million and is listed with Kellands agent Martin Dobson for sale by negotiation.
Friedlander told OneRoof there hadn’t been a day in his nine years at the house when he didn’t wake up wanting to phone his architect and thank him.
Start your property search
He said the “earthy”, “soulful” home met his brief so closely that it had been a constant joy to live in.
Back in the early 2010s Friedlander and his former partner fell in love with the 1077sqm plot of land at 30 Rawene Avenue and dreamed of building an “extraordinary” home on it. They picked up the property in 2011 for $3.485m and then set about making their house dream come true.
Discover more:
- Auckland CVs: Which suburbs are at risk, which ones are in the money
- Couple quit Auckland in a heartbeat after finding historic Hawke's Bay villa
- Lakeside estate where Richie and Gemma McCaw tied the knot sells snapped up
“We just knew that this piece of land deserved something extraordinary built on it, and we bought it with that in mind,” Friedlander told OneRoof. “I just knew instantly that Nicholas Stevens [of Stevens Lawson Architects] was going to design it for us.”
The build was finished in 2016 but Friedlander said it had been a journey getting to the end point. “At that time, my partner and I were travelling lots, and we had very, very different views of what we wanted in a house,” Friedlander said.
“But we were great fans of a hotel chain called Aman. And we were in Aman in Arizona. and we looked at each other and went, ‘Yeah, this is what we’re looking for’. This real conversation with nature. We saw where nature stopped, and this building started blended so beautifully together. A dance with architecture and nature. All of a sudden it was, ‘We’re on the right track’.”
The house was designed by Stevens Lawson Architects with a brief that asked for a conversation between architecture and nature. Photo / Supplied
Owner Jason Friedlander runs his sound therapy clinic from the property. Photo / Supplied
Friedlander, who uses sound “to assist people in healing deep trauma and to awaken to their authentic truth”, was inspired by the temples and monasteries of Asia, which played into the design. “I create spaciousness for my clients and I wanted a home that could extend that. So for me, my brief to the architects was sanctuary,” he told OneRoof.
“That idea of home, of sanctuary was a very important. It wasn’t about, ‘Look at me’. My brief kept going back to how do people feel in the house.
“I also wanted a house that was very sustainable. I wanted it to be properly earthed. I wanted it to be a very healthy house, [and] the materials had to be as healthy as possible.
The property is both striking and heavy in its use of sustainable materials. Photo / Supplied
One of the unusual aspects of the design is that the home has no gutters. The water runs off the shingle roof and is collected and channeled into a small man-made stream. “My landscape gardener planted natives that you would normally find along waterways,” Friedlander said, highlighting that the shower water was collected for the toilets.
The home doesn’t have a steel structure either. “Steel can upset people. So, we had to be really creative around how do we support the house. How do we make it strong.”
Whilst the brief was specific in some areas, the architect was given a lot of flexibility as well, he said.
The garden space is a sanctuary within sanctuary. Photo / Supplied
“The architects really had this opportunity to create deeply from their hearts, what they wanted to do, because I wasn’t trying to be an architect as well,” said Friedlander. “I just wanted them to create something beautiful. Something peaceful.
“I have lived there for about nine years and there would not be a day that went by that I didn’t want to call the architects and say, ‘Thank you. Wow’.”
Friedlander said despite coming from an art background, he hadn’t felt the need to hang much art on the walls. “The house itself is a piece of art, and the reflections and how the light is caught make it something really special,” he said.
Friedlander said he was selling up to moved to Taupō Bay in Northland, to be even closer to nature. “I changed professions, left the corporate world, to work on a more spiritual life. So now I live in nature all around. Nicholas Stevens is also helping me with the renovation here, because he understands what we created in Auckland.”
Listing agent Martin Dobson said the house had a strong connection with the water. “The home is very private, and well-built with great flow. It’s quite a surprising property once you enter. Having a jetty is always a nice treat to have as well.”
- 30 Rawene Avenue, in Westmere, Auckland, is for sale by negotiation
