Berowald House by Young+ Richards+ was named the 2025 Readers' Choice Home of the Year
A lot can happen in a decade. Or very little. It took almost 10 years to bring this family home to fruition, but it was well worth the wait.
It was back in 2016 that architect Elvon Young first started thinking about this home in the blue-chip suburb of St. Heliers, Tāmaki Makaurau. He and the home owners had known each other for years and when they were ready to revamp their home, they gave Young their brief. The house was dark, a rabbit warren and didn’t work for a young family. It sat on a steep, oddly shaped section and faced south. The pool at the top of the site was annexed from the house, making indoor-outdoor flow tricky.
“The biggest thing to resolve was the light; everything was in the shade,” says Young of the many challenges the project presented.
An elegant alternative to the existing layout was developed by Young and he presented it to his clients with a caveat: “You’ll get a brand-new reno with all the same problems: the site, the topography and the lack of privacy”.
The owners decided to revise the brief: a new home was to be conceived that solved all of the issues. Young, a director at Young+Richards+, and his team began to take the site apart.
“We ignored what the house could look like, and focussed on the response that was appropriate,” explains Young. “We pushed and pulled and shifted and moved and created an incredibly site-specific response. We overlaid ideas around privacy, light, shadow and atmosphere and ended up with a weird and wacky shape.”
The new design was completely different to the suburban home that had stood on the site for decades. Brazilian modernist in its aesthetic, with a touch of a Donald Judd sculpture thrown in, and a contemporary Hollywood Hills contemporary vibe, the concept was made up of two solid white cubes perched on a plinth. Monochromatic, concrete and decidedly modern, the house looked as if it had tumbled down the sloping section and stopped at the street.
It was perfect. And then it was put on hold for five years.
At the end of 2024, the house finally came to life. The 322.7m2 home, which won one of the Home of the Year Readers’ Choice awards, is a study in restrained style. A discrete side entry leads to a staircase which ladders up to a foyer and four bedrooms. On the floor above, the living, dining and kitchen area, described by Young as “an ethereal pavilion-like structure that provides light, privacy and connects you with the pool,” opens to a lush tropical garden landscaped by Natural Habitats. The outdoor living is as large as the indoor living and is anchored by a sophisticated fireplace.
“The house is not trying to be difficult,” says Young. “It’s actually trying to be as simple as it can with the site conditions. It’s a simple plan contorted into what the landscape asked us to do; a simple house for a Kiwi family.”
The owners weren’t trying to be difficult either: Incredibly, they did not ask for a single revision to Young’s design; what was presented in the first meeting about the new build sits on the site today. When it came to the interiors, created by Young+Richards+ director Harriet Pilkington, the owners said yes to every suggestion too.
Inside, a restrained palette and white walls provide the perfect backdrop for the home owners’ considerable collection of New Zealand art. Vertical timber screens, timber-lined ceilings, wool carpets and veined porcelain surfaces are muted and in natural hues. Dark built-in cabinetry and elegant light fittings streamline the fixtures and fittings in the interior spaces.
“There’s a lot of colour in the artworks and in the sculptures. It’s very diverse in style, artists and colour,” says Pilkington, who used the clients’ detailed catalogue of artworks to plan during the design phase where each piece would go. “We wanted to keep the interior very soft and clean, but warmer than the outside. The palette is very simple and consistent throughout, so it’s a backdrop to the artwork and the lives they live.”
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