Megson's 'Norris House'

Claude Megson's Norris House was last sold back in 2007 (see my old post on that here.). It's on the market again now, the agent saying:

Over the past 16 years, the property has been carefully improved and upgraded, including a new double skin membrane roof with fire resistant insulation, multiple heat pumps, a gas fire, a monitored security system with cameras, irrigation and improved drainage. Importantly, these enhancements respect and preserve Megson's original intent. 

A beautiful touch is the custom rug, with Claude's name and floor plan inscribed ...

This House was one of Claude's favourites, appearing frequently in lectures to illustrate his many points on domestic design -- not least the ideal for a family of what he called the 'two-zoned' house. In his formulation this meant a more formal adults' zone (a more public space on which to greeting and host guests, often an evening zone, for parents to enjoy their own adult company) separated slightly from a more informal rambunctious daylight-oriented family/children's zone.

In plans that adhere to this arrangement, as the Norris House did (and hopefully still does), bedrooms follow this zoning too, often with a master bedroom (as here) as a mezzanine over the formal/adults' lounge. 

In this house, the "hinge" between the two zones can be seen in the open skylight area in the photo below, and on floor plans and axonometric drawing at the foot of this post..

OneRoof described the house and ownership prior to what appears to be a delayed sale last year:

Built in 1975, the Norris House was one of architect Claude Megson’s (1936-94) favourites. It won the New Zealand Institute of Architects National Award in 1978 and the award for Enduring Architecture in 2005.

“It’s a modern house and timeless even though it’s now 50 years old and we love it,” says homeowner and retired architect Neil Cotton.

Sixteen years ago Neil and his wife Jenny were planning to build their own home when the Norris House came up for sale in 2009.

“I knew the house quite well but didn’t think I’d ever have the opportunity to live in it so when we managed to get it we were very happy about that. It’s such an interesting house to live in. It’s not boring,” says Neil.

What they love most about it is the three-dimensional nature of the internal spaces which have been described (by the Auckland Architecture Association) as “offering poetry of light and space”.

“Its spatial qualities are unique from the three-dimensional manipulation of the space internally,” says Neil. “Externally it also looks fantastic – from the street or from any direction. He was a very creative architect.”

Megson’s design extended to the garden, overlaying the entire site with a pattern, including the various courtyards which complement its strong architectural lines. The backyard is completely enclosed making it a sheltered and safe space for children to play or family pets to enjoy.

The private courtyard also has an outdoor table and barbecue area which is well used during summer and gets the afternoon sun. The home’s north-western aspect also means it gets morning sun in the front yard.

“Indoor-outdoor design was always critical to Megson so the way all the rooms open out to the outside is a special feature,” says Neil.

Megson was one of Neil’s tutors at university in the 1970s, and he readily admits to being a fan. He’s even redrawn the original hand-drafted plans and commissioned a custom rug for the living area.

Viewed from the mezzanine master bedroom, the rug – seen through a glass table – mirrors the home’s precise floor plan.

“This house is probably one of his best. It’s an exceptional house,” he says.

The four-bedroom home is light-filled and features beautiful Oregon timber ceilings and exposed rafters, and glazed roofs. The previous owner, interior designer Nikki Broome, upgraded the kitchen and bathrooms and installed oak flooring throughout the house which is offset nicely by the home’s concrete block plastered walls and steel joinery.

Improvements made by Neil and Jenny include re-roofing over thick insulation, and installing three heat pumps and a gas fire in the sunroom/TV family room. There is also an original open wood fire in the living room. 

[Note, all photos above and immediately below, and quoted text above, are the property of home owners, website owners OneRoof, and agent Steen Nielsen. They are reposted here to ensure they are not lost.]

This pic above clearly shows Claude's favoured method of lining partitions: simple painted hardboard with a negative detail and, often a line emphasising a door head height ... both of which help to stress the walls as screens rather than enclosures.

These images below come from images and hurried old photocopies from the July/August 1992 copy of Architecture New Zealand, and issue #3 of NZ Architect magazine 1978 respectively.

Megson News + A Masterpiece on the Market!

 

Apologies to readers for the long hiatus since my last post. Life and a global pandemic have got in the way!  

Not that life in the Megson world has slowed down: one of the most existing pieces of news has been the renovation of the award-winning Wong House in Remuera, its new owners restoring it immaculately to bring it back to life to become, again, a much-loved family home. 

A great reminder that these homes really are timeless, when well respected.

Wong house above and below. Pic from Stuff.

I had the good fortune over the weekend to visit three Megson homes myself. Unfortunately, one of them wasn't there.

The Jopling house in St Heliers has been featured here before. Unfortunately, it didn't feature at all in the plans of the new owners, who bought in 2021 and wasted no time in destroying it! Why? Driving past, one can see its replacement in framing stage -- and it's already clear it doesn't even make full use of its site, not even to take full advantage of the views the buyer must have paid so much for. 

It boggles the mind. Why pay for a site to destroy that thing on it which most gives it value? There is no rational answer.

Jopling House: Dining Room

Fortunately, another Megson house, near destroyed, still lives. The house in Arney Rd, Remuera, aka the Joan Mayes House (pics below), was already something of a whited sepulchre, previous owners having succumbed to the temptation to smear the house completely in art-gallery white. Worse, it appeared about to about to slide down the cliffside in Auckland's storms earlier this year. Closer inspection however reveals that the main damage to the house is to the extensive north-facing decking and outside living spaces which, it seems from my visit down the driveway (pics below), are the only areas presently off limits.

So some good news on the house's survival. It awaits its sympathetic owner.

The Joan Mayes House sits above the landslide, pictured from Shore Rd (above).
Pics below indicate the current official state of things. (Author's photos)

I paid a much more delightful visit to a house in the neighbouring suburb of Meadowbank: the house known to Megson lovers as the Barr House, after the delightful couple who first commissioned it way back in 1972.

The Barr House was featured here a few times back in 2016 (see here, here, and here), when I was lucky enough to meet aviation entrepreneur John and artist Pat Barr. 

The house, at 7 Keretene Place, Meadowbank, turns its back on the street to spill down down the slope to address the St Johns Bush Reserve. It has been sensitively and colourfully restored by its "new" owners Hayley and Mike (new, as in they and their family have owned and enjoyed it now for seven years), who now need to move away.

Which means it is all ready for a new owner to move in and fall in love with it!

Claude Megson's Barr House as she is today. (Pics by owner)

Yes, all this could be yours!

“Any buyer for this property has to have an understanding that you don’t own homes like these in the normal sense,” says Mike. “You are a custodian of them for a period.”

I'll write more about it soon, but in the meantime there are several websites already doing the job, including these:

• Claude Megson-designed Barr House seeks new custodian - Gil South, TRADE ME
• One for the fans: Legendary architect’s time capsule house hits the market with $3.45m CV - Catherine Smith, ONE ROOF
• Architectural Masterpiece- SOTHEBY'S NEW ZEALAND
• Claude Megson’s Barr House on the market - ARCHITECTURE NOW

And listen to architect Giles Reid, author of the book on Megson's houses, Counter Constructions, talk to RNZ here:

One of New Zealand's most distinctive architects Claude Megson designed around 40 homes during his 30-year career. Now for only the second time since it was built in the 1970s, one of his best-known homes the Barr House in the Auckland suburb of Meadowbank is up for sale. Architect and author Giles Reid joins Nights to talk about Claude Megson's legacy.

* * * * 

* One welcome piece of new technology used by the Wong House's new owners is a rubberised liquid membrane system, then known as Wet Suit, which they painted over the typically complicated Megson roof. The product, by Neptune Pacific, is now sold under a different name, One Coat, and should be a boon to Megson owners -- not least because it can be painted over an existing Butynol roof, and has been Codemarked down to zero degrees!

Obituary

Moving files recently I uncovered this 1994 obituary from the Herald sitting in my files -- Claude sharing a page with Henry Mancini, which may have amused him ...

NB: As far as I know, although there is a thesis by Claude in the Auckland School of Architecture library that used to be available (back when there was an Auckland School of Architecture library) there were no books by Claude ever published -- although I'd love to be corrected on this. There were however many articles on him and his work, one of which was called 'Claude Megson -- Utopian Idealist.' It was by architect writer and force of nature Tony Watkins, and it appeared in the Nov/Dec 1988 issue of NZ Architect.  

Cocker Townhouses - #4/57 Wood St

Claude's Cocker Townhouses in Freeman's Bay have featured here before (here and perhaps most memorably here, when architect Ken Crosson revealed the they remind him "of the main character in Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart" looking out and being energised by the city's skyline) -- and if you're keen you can still see Ray White's pics of # 3 online here).

Now for sale is townhouse #4: the townhouse in the southwest quadrant. The one with the tower!

The recipient of the 2014 NZIA Enduring Architecture Award, what strikes you when you visit (taking advantage of the Open Home), is how much privacy each unit is afforded, and how little you are aware of your neighbours. Who are very, very close. Yet also how much all-day sun each unit enjoys, even in this densely-built little site. It is an ingeniously interwoven set of spaces.

Claude's planning diagram indicates the basic site layout of the four attached houses, the central driveway looking down the vertiginous Gunston St towards the city's towers, with  a ring of protective enclosure to each unit opening up to private open space beyond. An exercise in enclosure and openness -- and as always, Claude's entrances invite you through from darkness towards the light.

There is a little more enclosure in this particular house than there was in 1973 when it was born. And a few more mirrors and "etched glass" than Claude would countenance (his denunciations of architects desecrating the spaces he'd designed with their mirrors could, and did, consume whole lectures). The online Megson Guide describes the struggle that gave these beauties birth:

Originally built as an investment property for Bill Cocker (a lawyer turned painter) and his sister Finola - who now occupy two of the four units - the building took four years to complete and involved enormous wrangling with neighbours and the council. Riffing on the forms of nearby villas and hinting at Mediterranean hilltowns, this building is a complex composition of prismatic forms in white weatherboards with shingle roofs, overlaid with filigreed timber balconies. The living spaces of each unit open onto a private courtyard garden. Bedrooms are located on a floor above, and the roof-level turrets - accessed via trap doors - house small studies with panoramic views over the city and harbour. [See New Zealand Architect no.6, 1977, and Home & Entertaining Aug/Sept, 2002.]

Giles Reid's masterful Megson monograph features these townhouses as one of Megson's early masterpieces, writing that (as with every Megson home, "each of Megson’s rooms and every ritual contained in them was designed around precisely dimensioned furniture settings":

The building is the product of clients wanting both a degree of retreat from the city and to give back to the area. It freely converses with the language of its neighbouring villas and yet also asserts its own modernity.
    The townhouses’ construction is extraordinarily intricate: white painted weatherboards, timber doors and projecting balconies, slate roofs and metal gargoyles. There is even a watch tower, accessed through a smuggler’s hatch after a vertical climb. It gives one of the best views of the city’s skyline...