Twin Gables

Dan and Olivia had spent years building and shaping homes for others. When it came to their own, on a rise above the Atawhai community with views across Tasman Bay and the Boulder Bank, they wanted it to say exactly what they do. “We both love design and the finer details, so with our own home we really wanted the opportunity to showcase what we do and create something that felt considered, cohesive and uniquely ours,” Olivia says. “The house was specifically designed to us and how we live.”

The site set the terms. This stretch of coast sits in a high-wind zone and takes strong sea breezes off the water, so the house had to earn its shelter. It also had to hold its heat, and it does that on orientation and a solid, insulated fabric rather than on anything switched on at the wall. For all its exposure, the house runs warm and lean. It sits in a growing subdivision, so privacy had to be designed in as carefully as the view had to be caught. The house does both, turning its open faces to the water and its shoulders to the neighbours.

The plan turns around two courtyards, each drawn at the same time as the rooms behind it rather than added once the house was up. The front courtyard is sculptural and closely tied to the architecture, part of the outlook from inside.

The rear one is built for family life, sheltered enough to use when the wind is up. Most rooms open directly onto one or the other, so there’s almost always a door that can be thrown wide while the house still feels held. In Nelson’s mild climate that connection stretches the way the family lives well beyond the walls for much of the year.

Inside, the living is open-plan and opens to the front and rear outdoor areas, so the sun can be followed right through the day and a crowd can spill either way. It was built for a young family and for entertaining, and the two uses share the same rooms rather than competing for them.

Building it fell to Dan, of Daniel Smith Builders, and the owner-builder’s eye shows in the finish. The palette is deliberately raw, cedar, bagged brick, concrete and oak, each material left to weather and settle over time. Working the four together, and holding every junction to the standard of a builder who has to live with it, is where the craft of this house sits.

“Working with natural materials also allowed us to celebrate craftsmanship and the finer construction details,” Olivia says. “There’s a tactile, authentic quality to the materials, and the way they have been carefully brought together gives the home a sense of individuality and character.”

The gables are the work of architect Marcus Stufkens of Stufkens + Chambers, sculpted and staggered so they frame the water on one side and fold the protected courtyards into the other. It is one of two homes his practice designed on the street. “Crafting homes that respond individually to their site, clients and surroundings is one of our greatest strengths and a source of genuine pride,” Marcus says. In May 2026 the house, entered as Tasman Gables, took a housing award at the Nelson and Marlborough Architecture Awards.

The finish that lets a raw palette read as considered fell to Grant Blakeborough of All Coats Painting, whose coats carry across the cedar, the joinery and the interior walls. Indoors the fire is an Escea TFS650 freestanding wood fireplace, its Direct Vent Technology drawing air from outside rather than from the room, for a wider flame view and better home performance. It’s ULEB approved for ultra-low emission zones.

In the rear courtyard is an Escea Outdoor Fireplace Kitchen, a professional grill and real wood fire in one, with plates, grills, meat hooks and a pizza oven to build around it.

That courtyard is the heart of the place. “It’s definitely our favourite family space,” Olivia says. “We can sit around the fire, have meals outside, relax in the spa or watch the kids play on the lawn while still feeling connected.” Having somewhere outdoors they could use when the wind was up mattered, and this one, with its fire, lawn, deck and spa, is the answer.

The courtyards, planting and lawns are Olivia’s own work, through her studio OB Design, and she treated the grounds as extra rooms rather than a garden added afterwards. The lawns are artificial turf, an experiment that paid off. “The lawn areas aren’t large, and the artificial turf allows them to function more like true outdoor rooms, particularly through winter, while remaining low maintenance and usable year-round,” she says. Coming from an older property with a young family, the couple wanted their weekends spent together, not on the mower.

A run of rooms is only as open as the joinery that lets it go, and here that’s aluminium from Design Windows, the South Island’s window and door specialists. Their sliding runs let whole walls stand open on a still day and seal tight when the sea breeze gets up. The same glazing frames Tasman Bay and the Boulder Bank, so the water stays in the room with the doors shut. Behind the glass, oak runs from the floors through the joinery, softening the concrete and brick.

The architecture, the build and the garden pull the same direction because the people who made them share a roof. “There’s a strong sense of refinement and cohesion throughout, but it’s also practical, durable and designed around the realities of family life,” Olivia says.