Schamroth House, 25 Kauri Glen Rd, Northcote

25+27 Kauri Glen Rd, Northcote: Built for Helen Schamroth. But not a Megson (Photo ref Lance Clark)

Take note: this is not a Megson house.

So why am I posting it here?

Because the agent selling it back in April originally thought it was (and removed the claim when we proved it wasn't), but you can see why he thought Megson might be involved -- perhaps at an early stage, before things were finalised and the layout became increasingly confused.

After all, Megson had built several homes in Glenfield. The plan shows it to be (partially) two-zoned*. Like Megson's 1968 Roy Good House, the studio space suggested it was a house for an artist -- author and craft artist Helen Schamroth** and her family -- and there is a superficial resemblance between the two houses. As I said when I first explored it, there are some Megson features, of a fashion, but clumsily done. And subsequent additions and renovations have made the similarity less rather than more.

Turns out that the place (which appears to still be on the market) was wholly designed and drawn by the Walker Co-Partnership (see drawing below), perhaps with Megsonian notions in mind, however poorly executed.

* *Two-zoned house: A family home giving room and space to both parents and teenage children, with separate "parent's realm" and another realm -- either for children or for guests—which meet around kitchen and family areas.

** Helen Schamroth ONZM, a celebrated art, craft and design writer and textile artist, and author of several books including the award-winning book '100 New Zealand Craft Artists.’

1968 Roy Good House, Oratia: Very definitely a Megson (Photo by Jackie Meiring)

It just shows you that in selling, or purchasing, one needs to take care in attributing the work to any architect, especially one as precise and assured as Megson, even when provenance is proved -- and sometimes the home has been so drastically altered it bears so little resemblance to the original architect's design it would be wrong to credit them.

That said, a buyer did get in touch with a colleague well versed in Megson's work, intending to restore what they'd assumed at that stage to be a Megson design, and rather than create a pastiche of something from the early 1970s they asked for information about the colour palette and materials that would have been specified originally.

Once the error was pointed out, however, their interest diminished. 

But it did strike me that it might be easier doing improvements to a place like this that's close but imperfect, than it would be to an original Megson house, like the whitened sepulchre at Arney Cres, that's been ""modernised" so successfully there's barely any Megson left. 

So, naturally, I took upon myself the exercise to best amend the house as simply as possible to better meet what the Master might have done. You can see how (relatively) easy it might be for example to more definitely establish the two-zoned home  ...