Asked about the challenges of renovating this rambling three-storey villa in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington’s Kelburn, architect Eli Nuttall from First Light Studio doesn’t miss a beat: “The client!” he jokes. Ross Davis, said client with wife Anna, doesn’t miss a beat either: “He’s joking, but it’s totally true!” And that, in a nutshell, sums up the easy and happy rapport that has seen the trio through the project’s ups and downs, where Ross and Anna knew what they wanted and Eli was a kind of diviner tasked with actually making it happen. The result is personal, idiosyncratic and testament to the nature of that relationship.

The renovation had been a long time coming, too. When one of the Davises’ daughters was 17, she joked that if her parents didn’t finally get around to it, she’d be moving out and at university by the time it was finished. They took her advice and started the process. “And when it was finished, she was done with university and thinking about moving back home!” Ross laughs.

Joking aside, Eli says the real difficulties were spatial. “Wrestling with the years of renovation was the challenge. Many people had had a crack at it. Getting our heads around bringing it back to something that felt cohesive again was definitely the hardest part.” The house had a lot going for it – it was generously sized and filled with original features, and a previous renovation had created a soaring double-height space above the kitchen-living area with expansive views over the city. Elsewhere, though, there were different ceiling heights and limited flow between the front of the house and the rear, which gets the afternoon sun.

Much of this is to do with some classic Wellington topography, which means you can enter the property from one of two streets. The house sits on a steep gradient between two roads that run parallel to each other. The lower street, which the more-formal front faces, is lined with traditional villas, and has housed the likes of diplomats, academics, economists and civil servants for decades. The upper street – like the two others that run parallel further up the hill – tells a story of more recent architectural experimentation, with a house in concrete by Simon Twose, a large home by Gordon Moller, a brick house by Keith Wilson, and three townhouses by Peter Beaven. Further up you’ll find designs by Athfield, Parsonson and Toomath.

Nuttall has taken his cue from those streetscapes, retaining the character at the front and adding a more drastic intervention at the back. Entering from the upper street, you’re compressed between two garages in a space that opens into the garden with a dramatic new glass roof covering the outdoor areas. Continue down the path, under the roof (which houses a wood-fired asado oven specified by Ross and Anna after they spent time in Argentina) and you come to the front door.

From here, you step into a large entryway, then around a corner where you meet the grand original staircase. Beyond that is the kitchen-dining-living area and views. Off this enfilade are various other rooms – storage, laundry, bedrooms and a media room with folding doors which open into the garden under the glass roof. Upstairs are bedrooms and a surprise rooftop deck that opens dramatically onto the city. Downstairs is a self-contained flat, accessed from the lower street.