When her 21-year-old actor son announced he was leaving home, Katrina Hall decided it was time to put the pad on the market for sale.
The chief executive of Context Architects has loved her stunning concrete and glass home at 218A West Tamaki Road, in Auckland’s Glendowie, but felt it was time for a change.
Son Angus Stevens has been making a name for himself on TV, and is looking to spread his wings. He has just finished playing Noam Leigh in Madam on Three. Prior to that he appeared in The Justice of Bunny King as Reuben, and then as Stephen Bain in the Black Hands series, which dramatised the infamous Bain murders.
“I don’t want to be on my own when Angus moves out. I’d rather be in an apartment in Ponsonby or Grey Lynn, where he’ll be living, and he’ll be much more likely to pop in for a coffee. I want to be somewhere where I have a lovely balcony and I’m popping distance, not organised-to-come-for-dinner distance. I will miss the home, but I just trust the universe. Things work out.”
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Hall described her home as “beautiful” and “quirky”. She’s used to it being filled with people. “It’s small, but because of the high ceiling we can have big parties here. I work with these amazing creative people. This house is always full of architects, actors, directors and writers,” she told OneRoof.
The original owners of the home, a Hawaiian/Māori couple, still live next door and like Hall and Stevens are very community minded. “We’ve been really lucky that we have amazing neighbours,” Hall said. “At Christmas time we have a neighbourhood party in our driveway.”
The futuristic home was built in 1990, by award-winning architect Marshall Cook. He used industrial quantities of concrete and steel, creating a solid yet stylish home. “I never would have bought it if it wasn’t concrete,” Hall said, describing Cook as one in a million.
“I’m really lucky to be able to inhabit a space that he has designed. When you get to live in a very cleverly designed architectural home you get to experience all the nuances of the architect. He was so clever in brilliant use of small space.”
The house has a tropical feel despite championing glass and steel. Photo / Supplied
Angus Stevens, centre, with Richard Crouchley in Black Hands. Photo / TVNZ
Cook, one of New Zealand’s great architects, died in 2023. In 2010, Te Kāhui Whaihanga the NZ Institute of Architects awarded him its highest honour, the gold medal. He had longstanding interests in residential intensification and townhouses and directed the setting up of Housing New Zealand’s healthy housing programme in 2001.
Barfoot & Thompson’s Luke Dallow, who is marketing the property, said real estate agents loved concrete. “It’s so neat having a concrete property because you know it’s foolproof. It’s not going anywhere, even in a nuclear war. But it has that style with it, and an industrial feel.”
He said being in the home was akin to being in Bali. “I was there doing an open home on Saturday. I had my face to the sun, and I closed my eyes. With the established gardens, I thought I was actually in Bali. It felt amazing.”
It’s a similar feeling to what Hall and Stevens had when they first viewed the home. Australian-born Hall grew up in Singapore and Malaysia, and felt instantly at home with the tropical gardens. “It’s because of the window slats, and the glass, and the greenery. That’s why I felt so at home,” she told OneRoof.
“I was looking for a home for the two of us to live in and everything we looked at was very normal. Then by chance we stumbled across this house. When we opened the front door and we saw this high ceiling and all these windows and this light and this garden and I remember exhaling. We both looked at each other and said, ‘Oh, we can be very happy here’.”
- 218A West Tamaki Road, in Glendowie, Auckland, goes to auction on September 25
