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WORK AND PLAY

A North Auckland couple run their businesses from a rural oasis with a pool, yoga deck, trio of donkeys and an old red tractor

WORDS ROSEMARY BARRACLOUGH / PHOTOGRAPHS TESSA CHRISP

Life is sweet for this North Auckland couple.

Some men lust after a shiny red sports car for their fiftieth birthday. Not Bruce McLean. His big day was complete when his birthday gift, a two-tonne digger, rolled off the back of a truck. “You need the toys to make it enjoyable,” says his wife Trish, of life on their 16ha property overlooking the Whangateau Harbour, north of Auckland. Bruce also has his trusty old tractor, Rosy, and reckons he’s almost recouped the cost of his machinery, with hours spent clearing ditches, redirecting streams and doing earthworks for the couple’s ambitious garden redesign.

Trish and Bruce were living in Auckland’s Pt Chevalier when they started looking for a bach or land they could build on. They spotted this place, surrounded by native bush and with sweeping views across the water, all the way to Omaha, Tāwharanui and Pt Wells. It wasn’t the bach or building site they’d been looking for, but a timeless 20-year-old home with plenty of glass to make the most of the views.

For three or four years they commuted, coming up north on Friday nights and heading back early on Monday mornings. “It was getting harder and harder to leave here and go back to the city, so we made the call we could both work from home… we sold our place in the city and made this our amazing oasis,” says Trish, who runs her own trans-Tasman recruiting company. Bruce too is self-employed, with a business servicing Italian coffee machines.

There was much to love about the land when they bought it – a lot of it was in regenerated native bush, there are glow worms, and it had been beautifully manicured by the previous owner.

But the McLeans called in Auckland garden designer Robin Shafer, who they’d worked with previously, to help reshape the outdoor areas close to the house.

“We said to Robin, ‘We want an adult pool and a resort vibe, and we really love that tropical garden you did for us in Pt Chev,’” recalls Trish. “Robin said, ‘Oh no, no, no, that’s not happening here... look at your native surroundings.’”

So native plants abound in their new garden, including oioi, flax, muehlenbeckia and kōwhai. The design relies on a series of zones – there’s a pool area, a shady deck with couches and a pizza oven, and a yoga deck, which is also a lovely place for an early evening gin and tonic while watching the tide come and go in the harbour below.

In last year’s lockdowns they started every day there, with yoga poses as the sun came up.

“One neighbour, if he’d been looking out at his

‘We made the call we could both work from home... sold our place in the city and made this our amazing oasis’

sunrise, would have seen our bottoms in the air… otherwise no one can see,” says Trish.

When the day warms up, you’ll often find the McLeans and friends in the pool. Initially they’d planned an infinity pool with a reflection pond below but the cost was eye-watering, so they settled on a simpler design, deciding to splash out on lining it with Italian Bisazza mosaic tiles in a blend of colours, including sparkly and bronze tones.

“It looks like pāua shell and it’s super-warm because of the colour of the tiles,” says Bruce. “Adults can float around there all day if they want.” A big, wide step means it’s also comfy to sit with a drink and admire the view.

The redesign of the pool left room for a special piece of garden art – a tūī created in Italian Bisazza tiles, but designed in New Zealand by Waikato artist Jane Crisp. Flax grows nearby and the couple love watching real tūī feed alongside their tiled cousin. They’re also entertained by kererū (“big, fat, drunk things,” says Trish), who crash-land in their fledgling kōwhai.

As well as abundant birdlife, the couple have a horse each, three griffon dogs, 14 noisy guinea fowl, heritage chickens, miniature belted Galloway cattle and three adorable donkeys. They’re cheeky and love attention, says Trish of the donkeys. Bruce is still trying to make friends again after trying to round them up after they’d been grazing at a neighbour’s a couple of years ago. “I chased them, and they’ve got good memories – they haven’t trusted me since,” he says, although bribing them with a pocketful of peppermints is helping to bring them around.

The chickens have started to lay and the McLeans are harvesting from their two orchard areas. When they arrived, the only fruit tree was a single lemon, and they wanted to be able to pick fruit year-round. “What haven’t we planted,” says Trish. There are avocados, olives, oranges, mandarins, grapefruit, lemons, makrut limes, grapes, plums, peaches, apples and pears.

A second orchard has more exotic plantings – tamarillo, cacao (which hasn’t produced yet), old-fashioned cape gooseberry, guava and yellow pawpaw.

It’s all part of the paradise they’ve created. Once the laptops are closed, life’s pleasures are only a few steps away – whether it’s picking pawpaw from the orchard, playing around on the digger or larking about with a playful trio of little donkeys. “We’re living the dream,” says Trish.

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