Rare adobe home by Sir Ian Athfield on the market

FAST FACTS

• A 207sqm home by Sir Ian Athfield is on the market for the first time in 35 years.
• The 70s-built home is one of the few the legendary architect built in the Hutt Valley.
• Renovations on the home were supervised by the architect’s wife and collaborator, interior designer Clare Athfield.

There is always some excitement when a home by Pioneering Kiwi architect Sir Ian Athfield comes on the market. Even if it’s just to rent.

Ath, as he was affectionately known, was something of an architectural magpie, drawing inspiration from colonial and industrial buildings, Japanese and Greek building styles, and renown modernists such as Mies van der Rohe to forge his own, distinctive style.

While rare, homes by Ath, do come up from time to time. His most famous home, Athfield House, the sprawling futuristic mansion he built for himself in Kaiwharawhara, is one of the capital’s most cherished landmarks.

The four-bed, two bath home at 22 Rakeiora Grove, in Korokoro, known as Hunt House, after the first owner, is in the same style as Athfield House. Designed to look like a collection of cottages stepping down the hillside, the home has a rustic, cosy charm that is typical of Athfields’ homes.

"I just arrived,“ Williams says. ”It was one of those glorious days after the southerly, and I just fell in love with Wellington. I thought, 'this is exactly where I want to live'. Of course, the next day the southerly came back."

Athfield designed the house in 1970 for John and Barbara Hunt. A charming “Wellington Village” side note is: Williams ended up working for John Hunt not long after he bought the house.

One day, Hunt called Williams into his office.

“[I thought]'Oh my god'. I wandered into the office, and he looked up from his desk and said, 'You're living in my house!'"

When he sold his UK home and moved to New Zealand full time, he "faxed the real estate agents and a long list of things that I did and didn’t want" in a home. One thing he did want: "something interesting."

"Then he said, 'Oh, and incidentally, it's in Ian Athfield', I went, 'I'll be there in 10 minutes'."

A suburb of Te Awakairangi-Lower Hutt, Korokoro is about 15 minutes from the capital, and five minutes from Pito-one’s restaurants, bars, and beaches.

"I walked in through the door, and the place was a wreck. It had not been lived in for six months. There was cobwebs, spiders the size of dinner plates, the whole shebang. I bought it on the spot."

The home features so many of Athfield’s signature elements, such as slip level living, open ceilings and exposed rafters, adobe walls, galley kitchen, and open plan spaces, and a connection between the indoor and outdoor.

"You can lie in the bed in the main bedroom, and you look through 1,2,3, sets of windows through to the valley opposite. Everything just lines up.

“This skylight looks as if it's in a random position, but it's designed so that even in the winter, you get the sun right through there. Absolutely brilliantly designed for light."

There’s a living room with a view of the ravine below the house, and all the way out to Matiu-Somes Island, that is part sunken lounge, part cosy den (bench seats around the walls that double as storage were designed by Clare). And a second living space/dining room, connected to the galley kitchen so whomever is cooking can still be involved with folks at the dining table.

The master suite is separate from the guest/children’s bedrooms - and there are two bathrooms, too.

A connected garage includes two work spaces/offices, as well as extensive storage.

It also just looks really, really cool, like a tiny cliff-side village from a sci-fi fantasy story.

It’s a versatile house. He’s used bedrooms as a gym, with incredible views, and they currently use the fourth bedroom, up stairs, as a media room.

With space under the house that could be converted into a third living space, or fifth bedroom, the couple thinks the house would suit a family.

Listing agent Tina Jeune-Bridges of Bayleys calls the home a “special piece of history”, that would suit “creative types - artists, writers, painters”.

With a home as rare and characterful as an Ian Athfield home, it’s very hard to put a price on it. The CV of $945,000 is from September 2022. The 2025 median for the suburb is $910,000, which suggests the CV doesn’t adequately reflect the value of this unique home.

The home is for sale by deadline which ends October 28, unless sold prior.