NZ’s Best Homes with Phil Spencer Ep 6: How much the last three are worth, a great Kiwi artwork surprise, and is that really a home?
And so we come to it at last, the final of the six episodes of the second season of NZ’s Best Homes with Phil Spencer. It’s a finale which includes both an art surprise and one of the most valuable properties in the series, even if it – controversial opinion below – really doesn’t qualify to be on the show.
This week’s three properties top $20 million in total value giving Spencer a season in which he has surveyed more than $150 million worth of housing stock across just 18 homes. That represents a lot of architects to greet in a matey fashion, a lot of wall textures to run his hands over lovingly, and quite a lot of timber to smell.
The man himself, in a more passive role than he is on his UK property shows, remains ever likable, even if there has been times his scripts have made him sound like the Alan Partridge of the open home, or a Temu Kevin McCloud.
So what have we learned during past shows about the state of NZ architecture and where our high net-worth individuals like to live or spend their weekends?
Well, um, those suspended fireplaces sure are popular. You could have run a drinking game for every time one of those turned up in the corner with its 1960s French design looking like the fire-breathing mouth of a stingray.
We could say something rude about the art and other tastes of some of the people who live in these houses. But they have been nice enough to let their architects show Spencer about their digs and the ratings indicate that’s what lots of us want to watch. Here’s a recap of the final three.
Te Arai Beach House
Situated not far from the Te Arai Links luxury golf course south of Mangawhai, the home is a weekend getaway place consisting of two offset gabled timber sheds which sit between the dunes of the beach and a stand of pine trees. It also sits among a growing number of high-end baches that the beach and the golf course is attracting to the area.
The timber cladding extends to the exterior roof, which with the lack of corrugated iron, the pine tree backdrop and white sand gives it all a slightly Baltic feel. But there’s plenty of rural NZ in the slatted timber of the sliding timber shutters.
And all that wood means it’s put to the now-regular Spencer sniff test. “I can smell the timber!” he says, yet again, indicating a pass.
But that wood is offset in the master bedroom and at least one other room with the walls covered by panels replicating artist Lisa Reihana’s famous video work In Pursuit of Venus [Infected].