A Passage Of Time

In 1973, Ashley Muir designed a shadowy, almost medieval house for wine pioneers Rolfe and Lois Mills. Four decades on, it’s no less powerful.

- Matt Philp

Farmhouses rarely excite architectural controversy – at least, not at the level occasioned by this home, built 45-odd years ago at Rippon, on the western shore of Lake Wanaka, for the pioneering winemaking Mills family.

Anchored to the brow of a steep – and at the time, mostly bare – escarpment by medieval-style raked buttresses, the mud-brick building came as “a bit of a shock to some people”, says architect Ashley Muir, of Dunedin-based firm Mason & Wales. The NZIA judging panel didn’t even make it to the front door. “A couple of jurors said that a house should never have been allowed there; they drove straight out of Wanaka.”

Half a century later, it’s difficult to understand the consternation. Both structure and site have softened and fused; vines now climb the buttresses, which seem less like foundations, more an outgrowth of the land. During the same period, Rippon has been transformed into an internationally recognised piece of wine country, while the house has been a home for two generations of winemakers.

Muir was in his third year of architectural practice in 1973 when Rolfe and Lois Mills invited him to help them design a house – and that really is the best way to describe the process. “We wanted our personality to be foremost,” says Lois Mills. “We felt the best way to do that was to find a talented young architect who listened. That’s exactly what Ashley did: listened, interpreted and made our ideas exciting.”