Mr Hallyburton Johnstone was a retired farmer from Ngātea. In 1921, he bought a large holding of land on Dignan Street in what is now Rangi-mata-rau Point Chevalier in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. He subdivided it for housing, keeping an old homestead, known as The Pines, and four acres in the middle of the block. A keen bowler and sportsman, he eventually – after some judicious lobbying from members of the community – placed the house and land into a perpetual trust for the Hallyburton Johnstone Sports Club (bowls and tennis) and a croquet club. “The property is situated in a commanding position and an uninterrupted view of the harbour can be obtained from the broad verandah,” reported the New Zealand Herald in 1927.

Nearly a century later, on a recent Tuesday, I’m standing on the second floor of a house designed by Guy Tarrant which overlooks both the sports clubs and the Dignan Street Community Garden – a more recent addition which practises regenerative agriculture. You can’t see the harbour any more, thanks to liquid amber trees and a proliferation of inter-war bungalows on the street, but you can hear the cheerful thwack of tennis balls, and the sound of spades in the earth from what was Johnstone’s land. 

Looking down through tall, mullioned windows beneath a generous gabled roof, the view is akin to Sims, all activity in miniature. “To me, that’s what is really special about this site,” says Tarrant, surveying the gardens. “But also there are no development controls on that side – so we could be a metre off the boundary, basically.” Tarrant lives across the road. You might know his house, a curving brick courtyard design which fends off a busy main road and features a floating roof. When his clients – a mother, her son and his partner, who will eventually occupy two houses on this site – went looking for an architect, they needed only glance across the street.

This project’s brief called for something slightly more compact than Tarrant’s home, though – two houses on 650-odd square metres – and on a more modest budget. The rear house was to be occupied by the son and his partner; his mother may one day move into a new, one-level house in front. “It was interesting,” says Tarrant. “It was about how small can we make it and not make it feel impoverished? You’re on the precipice of banality, and it’s a question of how do you make it beautiful?” 

Tarrant’s plan was to push right up under the recession planes with a generous gable, partly inspired by a neighbouring church he has long admired, and which made for a practical, generous roof. At 38 degrees, it’s flatter than a church’s, but it creates a lovely echo of its white-painted neighbour. (It also, possibly unintentionally, mimics a glasshouse in the community garden, whose Facebook page features a shot of lush growth, a glasshouse, and this house being built and already feeling very much at home.) Under that roof, he arranged solid brick walls to screen neighbours, opening the house at either end with tall stretches of glass. In one direction: garden, tennis, bowls. In the other: trees. 

To get to the house, you walk past the original bungalow in front down a wide path that isn’t quite a driveway (the consent requires a standard-width driveway once the site is formally subdivided) and past a building that is legally a garage but functions more as a studio or gatehouse. Then, you might go through the front door, or you might come through a metal gate and into a compact, lush courtyard featuring a garden designed by Andy Hamilton and a sheltered outdoor living space, with an open fireplace, positioned under the soaring roof. (Side note: a peculiarity of the brief was that the courtyard be cat-proof, to prevent the escape of the couple’s beloved feline.)