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This extraordinary home on Whitianga Waterways takes a single colour to stylish heights

WORDS CL AIRE M C CALL PHOTOGRAPHS JANE USSHER

This waterside Whitianga home sparkles with beachy style.

Locals call it The White House (and there’s no denying the palette is pristine) but choosing to go all-white in this holiday home on Whitianga Waterways wasn’t necessarily the easy path. Sure, it provided a formidable focus, but white also has a dark side. It’s easy to get it wrong. Andrew and Melissa Savage bought the section in 2017 with a view to creating an escape that would entice their adult sons Sam, now 26, and Ben, 25, and their friends back to the fold. “We all love fishing, diving and exploring,” says Melissa. “Coming here was about adventures and keeping the family unit together.”

The wedge-shaped site went on the market just as the Huntly-based couple sold their building-panel business. It was north-facing and sitting on two canals with a wide frontage for parking the boat. The timing was just right.

Although they had developed and lived in several smaller homes over the years, this location called for something with special stature. The pair sat with a pencil and ruler and devised a gabled living zone, a guest wing and a garage, all set around an internal courtyard.

Perhaps they sprinkled in some fairy dust too – the spatial volume of the main area, which faces the water on one side and the courtyard on the other, feels magical. Cathedral ceilings stretching to a 5m peak have something to do with it but it’s the white-on-white layering that makes it seem so beautifully serene and stylish.

Melissa calls her aesthetic “modern coastal” and credits her flair with a paintbrush and palm fronds to an insatiable interest in Instagram, a passion for Pinterest and to her studies – project managing and styling design courses by Three Birds Renovations. The Sydney-based school is operated by three talented women and it was creative director Bonnie Hindmarsh’s own home, in a semi-rural setting, that captured Melissa’s imagination. She was determined to recreate the look on Kiwi turf.

Choosing the right white meant asking Andrew, her best friends and even Bonnie herself for their thoughts. “I wanted it to be soft, chalky and matte,” she says. Out came the sample pots and ultimately, it was Dulux Mt Aspiring Quarter that made it on to the board-and-batten of the external walls, a move that is the antithesis of the nostalgic, dark-stained cladding commonly seen. Inside, a raw wood dining table and a set of white cane dining chairs are a foil to the white. Dulux White on White ceilings, walls, kitchen cabinetry and architraves team with Dulux Appliance White on the door joinery. “All these are warm shades of white that don’t pick up blues or yellow,” explains Melissa.

Working alongside Nick Gill and Matt Kurth from Cove Construction gave her the chance to use her skills. “We wanted to make sure of the detailing of the build, so Melissa spent a lot of time sourcing products and being on site,” explains Andrew.

She had learned about scale and proportion and the kitchen has a 6m-long bench that isn’t dwarfed by the voluminous space. The couple both like to cook, and there’s no need to jostle for position as they pan-fry a fresh catch of fish or chop tomatoes for a salsa. Some of the laminated tongue-and-groove cabinets feature rattan fronts for a touch of texture and a strut window that flips up 90 degrees provides an unimpeded outlook to the courtyard.

“Strut windows are a standard fitting in Australia, but I struggled to find one here,” says Melissa. “When it comes to boundary-pushing building products, I think Australia is one step ahead of the game.”

Not that she always looks across the Tasman for inspiration; sometimes she leans in to local. Melissa is not averse to mixing high-end with high street. The trick is to buy quality key pieces and have fun with the rest.

She also asked two of her best friends, both with an eye for design, for their thoughts. “We had a blast sharing mood boards over coffee or a wine and finalising the last ideas for styling,” says Melissa. It was important to have some visual contrast to the all-white backdrop, so she used a tiny drop of black in furniture, such as the fine metal arms of occasional chairs and the criss-cross pattern on a Berber shag rug.

Art provides the finishing touch. Prints by American socialite photographer Slim Aarons, often set in Palm Springs, are in keeping with the drifty vacation feel. Palm fronds are a motif that feature in light fittings and tropical print cushions, but there are also crisp white linens, lazy-as fans and a swing chair on the deck leading from the bedroom. It could be the Florida Keys – minus the alligators of course.

At the last minute, the couple decided to include a set of French doors to open the garage and Andrew’s office to the courtyard. When the gang comes around – “our boys travel in a pack” – the outdoor fireplace is a magnet for the mob so that on evenings during any season, the air rings with conversation and laughter.

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2022-01-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

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