WHERE THE PHEASANTS FLY

An artist sketched a house open to the views with a nod to the local birdlife in 2019. Two years later, the vision was realised and he and his family moved into the home on a hill in Raglan

Simon Dickey and Sarah Schultheiss are city people used to having neighbours in close proximity. Simon used to call Ponsonby home and Sarah hails from Berlin. Now, their closest neighbours are pheasants and bulls who don’t mind at all when he does naked yoga on his deck. It’s just as well he’s coming round to the rural idyll.

“I’m starting to fall in love with cows. Every one of them has a different expression. Some are angry, some are gentle and some are in between,” he says of the creatures who’ve inspired the charcoal portraits hung around the house.

The family’s conceptual 350sqm four bedroom, three-bathroom home has 360 views across Raglan. A week after he bought the site, he’d made a sketch of what he wanted his house to look like, which now hangs in the main bathroom, and briefed the architect.