Easy living beckons in a Wanaka home that features warm wood and clever technology, Kim Dungey reports.
Guy and Meridee Beange have moved 18 times in the past 23 years but have no desire to leave their award-winning Wanaka home.
The cedar-clad house suits their relaxed lifestyle, Mrs Beange says.
''We might live overseas for a couple of years but we're never moving again.''
Few would blame them.
The 258sq m home, which boasts extensive timber joinery, and high-tech features such as remote-controlled heating and hidden LED lighting, recently won Dunlop Builders the new home $650,000-$1 million award at the Registered Master Builders House of the Year Awards.
The north-facing house was designed by Fraser Cameron, an architect in the couple's former home town of Taupo.
He was in Wanaka on a ski trip about the time they bought their Lansdown St section and immediately suggested a two-storey home with the main living area upstairs.
Mrs Beange says that concept was ''a bit foreign to some people'' but it was something they had already decided was the best way to gain sun and views and to avoid the feeling of being in suburbia.
They also wanted a permanent home that made them feel as though they were on holiday.
Separate living and sleeping areas can be found on both levels and the upper floor functions like a one-bedroom apartment, an arrangement designed to meet their needs now and in the future.
It also works well regardless of how many people are home.
Guy Beange works offshore for six weeks at a time and their adult sons have both returned home for a while, one on a university break, the other to work and save money for overseas travel.
On the ground floor is a lounge where their sons can entertain their friends, a bathroom and two bedrooms, one of them with a long window seat where visitors can ''bunk down'' on standard mattresses.
The lounge has its own kitchenette/bar and access to a patio.
Heated polished concrete floors provide warmth and no-fuss cleaning.
On the upper level, bench seating under the kitchen windows allows the family to enjoy the early-morning sun and the living room, with a built-in gas fire, leads on to a covered timber deck with water views. A
lso on this level is the master bedroom, with ensuite and walk-in wardrobe.
All the joinery as well as the stairs and the upstairs flooring is American white oak.
The large garage has a 3m-high door, designed for the family's wakeboard boat, and plenty of storage.
Having unpacked their belongings many times, the couple know that people end up with ''a lot of stuff'' and liked the idea of storing rarely used items out of the house.
A former agricultural pilot and rescue helicopter pilot, Mr Beange is now chief pilot with Bristow Helicopters, in Nigeria.
His work saw the family live in many different places, including Raglan, Hastings, New Plymouth, Blenheim, Palmerston North and Taupo, before they moved to Wanaka six years ago.
When it came to practicalities such as heating, Mr Beange spent time researching the latest technology.
The diesel boiler system, which runs the radiators upstairs and the underfloor heating downstairs, is controlled remotely and monitored via their iPhones or iPad.
So, too, is the Sonos music system, which allows them to stream the same music throughout the house or to play different tracks in each room.
Technology was used for practical reasons - they automated the blinds because many of them are behind furniture - but also has entertainment value, Mrs Beange says, laughing at the fun she can have at her sons' expense: ''I have the ability, provided I take my iPhone and the blind remote to bed, to put the blinds up, turn the music on and turn the heating off, all from my bed. It's a great way to get them out of the door.''
In the evening, hidden lighting showcases the timber inside and out.
LED strip lighting was mounted under and on top of all the joinery, and routed into the underside of the handrail on the stairs.
Mrs Beange says they had never built before but they rented a house next to the site and found the architect and builder easy to deal with: ''It's a lot of money and you see a lot of people stress over building but we definitely enjoyed it.''
The House of the Year judges said the house met the clients' brief perfectly and was a ''simply beautiful home built by a master craftsman and his team''.
Dunlop Builders is run by third-generation builder Bryce Dunlop and wife Donnelle, who started the Wanaka business in 2003 and now employ nine staff.
