Humble Special

PAC Studio designs a home on a tiny budget in the bush above the Kaipara Harbour.

- Simon Farrell-Green

In recent years, aspiring first-home buyers in Auckland without a million or two to spend have been faced with a stark choice: move out or give up. In doing the former, some found a lifestyle that turned out to be better than the one they’d left behind – as the owner of this modest home by PAC Studio discovered. “I was working six days a week and I realised I needed to change my life,” he says. “I changed my diet, started doing yoga – and the house was an extension to that.”

It started with the section, up a very fetching arm of the Kaipara Harbour near Pahi, which the owner found one afternoon quite by accident while visiting the area. His is one of nine sections in a small enclave carved out of 3870 square metres of regenerating native bush, with a share in a large reserve, and it cost less than the average Auckland renovation. The cute seaside village of Pahi is nearby, as are the townships of Maungaturoto and Paparoa. There’s a good local pub and an excellent weekly farmers’ market.

Tucked down a long, curving, bush-lined driveway, the site is private and gently sloping. At the time of purchase, a bund of soil was piled up close to the top of the gentle slope, which obscured the view of the Kaipara Harbour and made it feel claustrophobic – but the view from the top was magical.

“It’s just so beautiful,” says Sarosh Mulla of PAC Studio, who visited with Aaron Paterson, PAC’s director, not long after their client bought the site. “He found a lovely spot pinched between the bush and the water – you’ve got close-ish neighbours, but at the same time it feels really private.”