Life’s a beach

In this two-bedroom Karitane beach house, the living areas on the top floor and the guest suite below are all fronted by sliding doors that face towards the sea. The owners didn’t want the house to be as big as their previous home and didn’t want to...

Yvonne and Andrew Chadwick stumbled across Karitane while driving from Christchurch to Dunedin. ‘‘Andrew had a friend who used to spend summers in Karitane when he was at university and when we saw the Karitane sign, we drove in,’’ Mrs Chadwick says. ‘...

The owners’ spoodle, Suli, peeks around the corner at the top of the stairs.

In the guest bedroom, wicker baskets and a shell-patterned duvet cover reference the home’s seaside location. Mrs Chadwick took the photo of the historic wooden piles at St Clair. The adjoining deck offers expansive ocean views.

Contrasting with the lighter timber and wall colours, the dark kitchen has a long island where both owners can be working at once, without getting in each other’s way.

The view from the deck off the living area.

Screened by plants, the outdoor bath and shower serve two purposes: the owners can bathe under the stars and their grandchildren can rinse off after being on the beach, keeping sand outside where it belongs.

The private outdoor area at the back of the house.

The master bedroom has ocean views in one direction and opens to the garden on the opposite side.

This Karitane house makes the most of its incredible location. Kim Dungey reports.

Andrew and Yvonne Chadwick have built a retirement home perfectly suited to their relaxed lifestyle.

The beachfront property has a simple layout, a practical interior and mesmerising ocean views.

"We didn’t want a show home," Mrs Chadwick explains.

"We wanted somewhere that the grandkids could barrel off the walls and something that would be easy care."

Spread over three levels, the house comprises a series of cedar-clad boxes stepping down the sand dunes towards the golden beach of Karitane. Large windows and decks provide uninterrupted views of surfers and sea lions; there is no indication of the challenges they initially had to overcome.

Twenty-four 8m-long piles had to be driven 2 to 4.5m down through the sand to find solid bearing, architect Gary Todd says. Access to the site for builder Lew Walker and his team was also difficult, with steel framework and other materials having to be lifted in by crane or carried up the dunes by hand.

Still, there were perks for the builders who spent eight months on site: they got to go swimming in their lunch breaks.

The owners initially wanted to build the house from shipping containers. Mr Todd also favoured stacking the house on different levels up the hill but felt that cedar "containers" would blend better with the environment than steel ones.

On the top floor, the Chadwicks enjoy apartment-style living, with the open-plan kitchen, dining and living area flanked by the master suite on one side and by a TV room (with sofa bed for the grandchildren) on the other.

Both ends of the living area are glass walls — one opening towards the beach; the other to a private back deck and garden.

"There’s a transparency to the design," Mr Todd says, "and that was an ideal solution for a south-facing view, where we also wanted north-facing solar gain."

On the other walls, horizontal "slot" windows are placed at a lower height than usual to provide privacy and to frame the expansive views when they are seated.

The elevated position means the road below disappears from view and the deck off the living area visually merges with the sand: friends there when the tide was in told them they felt like they were on an ocean liner.

A former Bunnings trade rep and a former medical practice manager, the Chadwicks moved south to be closer to a daughter who lives in Dunedin.

"It’s built so when the kids come, they’ve got their own space," Mrs Chadwick says, pausing on the middle level where a guest bedroom, with its own bathroom and deck, also sometimes accommodates their other daughter and her family from Germany.

The couple previously lived in a small settlement on the lake north of Rotorua so were used to water views and a village vibe.

Here, the front fence is appropriately made, not from gabion baskets, but from crayfish pots.

The outdoor bath, with shower overhead, is not just for soaking under the stars. It also deals to sandy feet.

"In our old holiday house we had carpet and the kids had to wash their feet all the time [before going inside]," Mrs Chadwick says.

"That’s why we put wood flooring all the way through. When the grandkids leave, we take the rugs outside, sweep the floor and return the sand to the beach."

Preserves in the kitchen are testament to the Chadwicks’ efforts to be ‘‘reasonably self-sufficient’’. Herbs, fruit trees and vegetables all flourish despite the clay soil.

Mrs Chadwick also enjoys sewing, spinning and photography and her skills are displayed throughout. A decoupage coffee table is decorated with copies of their house plans. A large photo of the seafarer’s memorial in Nelson hangs at the top of the stairs — a distressed mariner pointing towards the horizon while grappling with a heaving ship’s wheel. There is also a collection of pottery by Mr Chadwick’s late father, Mark.

Mrs Chadwick says they didn’t know anyone in Karitane (population 380), when they arrived but local people have been "incredibly welcoming". Her husband has joined the Waikouaiti Golf Club. She enjoys swimming in the sea and taking their dog for a daily walk on the sand, being careful to avoid the resident sea lion.Their grandchildren are also on the beach as often as they can and have learned to body-surf.

"Our kids grew up being around their grandparents at Maketu beach in the Bay of Plenty, going for beach walks and swimming. Now we can do that with our grandkids. It’s pretty special."

kim.dungey@odt.co.nz