Age Of Enlightenment

Sixteen years on, Daniel Marshall reworks an early design with a fresh new perspective.

- Simon Farrell-Green

In some ways, 2003 doesn’t seem like such a long time ago – until you count all the things that have changed. Sixteen years ago, the world was still reeling from the aftermath of September 11 and George W Bush’s subsequent invasion of Iraq; Helen Clark was New Zealand’s prime minister. Finding Nemo was released at the box office and the best-selling cellphone was the Nokia 3200. The October/November cover of New Zealand Home & Entertaining – the predecessor to HOME – meanwhile, featured a crisp, urbane house in Remuera, Auckland, by a young architect called Daniel Marshall.

At a time when the fashion of Auckland’s eastern suburbs ran to French country or faux-Mediterranean – and the leafy street this home sits on has plenty of that – the house, designed for former All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick and his family, was something of a departure. Accessed down a long right-of-way, the recently subdivided site was sloping and north facing, with some beautiful established trees and a fabulous view over Hobson Bay and out over the harbour to Rangitoto. “It was extraordinary,” recalls Marshall. “It was just a paddock, a farm with fence posts and grass in the middle of Remuera.”