Justine Munro loves plantation style so fervently that, when she spots a good buy, wherever that may be in the world, she’ll move mountains. If that involves bringing a cane bedhead in as oversized luggage from Sydney, carrying a monstrous birdcage on board from Bali or boldly asking a friend on their travels to the States if they wouldn’t mind “awfully” acting as courier, so be it. “I love the India Hicks look, all dark and light and tropical,” says Munro.

It’s an aesthetic that seems made for this home, with high ceilings, generous verandahs and elegant details, that she, husband Matt Crockett and their three teenaged girls share in St Mary’s Bay, Auckland. But it’s a look that has been hard won. 

When the couple bought the two-levelled property in 2016, it was clear it had heritage value but a 1980s remodel had given it Balinese touches, such as rattan lining and modern wooden windows. It was painted brown. They wanted to discover its roots so called in architect Rosalie Stanley from Salmond Reed Architects to do a bit of digging.

Stanley unearthed a 1919 survey superimposed on a 1908 map of the area. “Newer houses were recorded in red ink – as was this one – so we know it was built sometime in the intervening years. The map also shows the house with a corner-bay verandah and another bay window,” says Stanley. Armed with this information, after some debate, the team concluded that, at heart, this was a transitional villa. Another transition was in the offing.      

The changes were sensitive yet not slavish. They were also not for the faint-hearted. For one thing, it appeared the lower floor had been excavated by a home ‘handyperson’. “At one stage, our builder called out to me with some urgency saying, ‘I have to go and get a prop’,” recalls Munro. The whole lot could have come down. Completing this work properly, plus full waterproofing and new drainage, was step one of the mammoth plan. 

Next, they started to coax the layout into something simpler. The master bedroom was extended to incorporate the bay window and a little roof was added. It lines up neatly with a Juliet balcony from where, Munro says, if there’s a house party, she can keep a parental eye on teenage comings and goings.

Then other dog-legs, recesses and even an air bridge to nowhere were dealt to. Munro wanted to achieve visual flow through the guts of the villa, from the upstairs living above the entry stair to Rangitoto. Stanley warned that meant a mountain of structural work.

The air bridge was evacuated and a wall downstairs removed to open up the view but not without strengthening with steel beams to the ceiling. “Every panel of plasterboard had to be reinforced,” says Stanley.

It wasn’t the only structural Everest. Having opened up the kitchen/dining area, they decided to craft a stairway up to a room once accessible only by ladder. The ‘floating’ stair that zigzags through the living space is a piece of sculpture – and the loft now a cute attic retreat for the couple’s eldest daughter.

Beneath it, a ‘secret’ doorway leads to one of Munro’s favourite hang-outs: the powder room. It’s a mini showcase of villa style revived. New panelling is studiously detailed. “Throughout the renovation, Munro kept saying, ‘This wall is boring, do you think it needs panelling?’” In fact, Stanley provided hand-sketched drawings for all the details, both inside and out.

When it came to the exterior, she sent Munro (a dynamo who loves a project) on a walking mission to find and photograph a doppelganger of the original house (with its gable-end corner bay). Several miles later, she had her match. Stanley based the fretwork and brackets reinstated on the frontage on these photographs. 

The reformed spatial experience and character features are foils to Munro’s accomplished sense of style. And she doesn’t put a foot wrong. The aesthetic journey starts in the front garden (classical yet modern) and moves into the foyer where basalt tiles in a herringbone pattern set a peaceful-yet-uplifting mood that continues in an effortlessly sophisticated vein.

“I want people to come in and feel restful – with views of the garden like an oasis – and I certainly don’t want any decorative colour to ‘pop’.”

It’s not hard to imagine why the living zones and back patio are invariably filled with a giggle of girls. What self-respecting teen could resist lounging on the garden swing, dipping into the plunge pool when the summer heat settles or planning the next shopping excursion on the bench seat beneath the pergola? “I’ll often come home and there are beach towels strewn across the deck,” says Munro.

It’s just as well they gather around the petite pool, because they’d be hard-pressed to commandeer the swing-on-a-rope on the north-eastern side of the house. That’s where the adults gather for sundowners with an outlook over the neighbourhood to the boats beyond. Munro: “Bubbles on the balcony look set to become an institution.” 

Instagram moments abound inside too: the kitchen with its oversized (think over-oversized) woven lampshades and delicious monster plant inhabiting the bench; the Bahamas-chic living room centred on a glamorous silver mirror; and a conservatory with 1920s-style cane chairs and a palm-tree backdrop. Add a Long Island iced tea and it could be a scene from The Great Gatsby.

“I love dark wood, white walls with detail, cane, baskets, smooth marble and natural stone. I think the eye likes to look at texture; it’s soothing.”  

Even Crockett, who sometimes wonders if his wife is stir-crazy (and who is often away on business only to find a surprise unwieldly package turn up for Munro in his hotel room), agrees she’s got it right. Not only do the myriad spaces for work and play keep his teenaged children close to home but, when he does relax in residence, he finally understands her passion. “He can’t see the vision but, when he spends a whole day here, he says, ‘I love it’.”

This article first appeared in Urbis magazine.

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