A World Of Its Own

Tracy Grant and her husband David Lord had no intention of living in south Auckland. They were looking for a home close to the city. However, when Tracy went to have a look at a Manurewa property out of curiosity, she immediately fell under its spell.

That’s understandable as the house has the remarkable ability to make visitors feel as if time has been arrested and the boundaries of place dissolved. One could easily be living in 1934 or 1955 England, or is it Brittany? Who knows and who cares anyway once you’ve relaxed into a house with such a strong personality that it forms a world of its own.

It seems apt that this couple has taken guardianship of the property. Who better to look after this treasure than Tracy, with her exceptional talents as a stage designer for theatre, opera and ballet, and David, a translator with fluency in three Romance languages?

Walking down the curving driveway to the home, the feeling of being in another world is immediate. The house is set away from the street and faces a jade green stretch of lawn bordered by a broad cuff of mature native bush.

David says the house is one of five built in the area around the 1920s from plans drawn up in England. It has a grade two heritage listing. Part of what makes the triple-brick-walled pebble-dash house special is that it has not had to suffer the indignity of a series of owners fiddling with its structure.

Quirks and curiosities remain, such as the kitchen with its roomy pantry and servants’ calling board and the room dedicated to storing household linen. And it has no obvious front door – a loggia punctuated by French doors straddles the front of the house so that you enter the main living areas via an intermediate zone that is neither indoors nor out.

Tracy has placed a large round American oak dining table with a distinctive herringbone-patterned top in this area. It’s here because of a serendipitous remark: “It belonged to David’s parents who live in Australia. When we were visiting them I commented on how much I loved it. As it happens, no one else in the family liked it at all so later on it was packed up with the chairs and sent to us to look after.”
The table is now a focal point for entertaining. “We both love food and cooking and the whole ritualistic aspect of mealtimes. A dining table is such an important part of a home,” says Tracy. “Often people I work with in London and Sydney come to stay and it’s a great way to start on a show.”

Meals are served on a complete set of cabbageware china bought by Tracy while on holiday in Portugal and now stacked on a sideboard. “I picked out a few pieces and David said that if I was going to buy anything I might as well get what I wanted. Three months later it arrived and not a single piece was broken.”

Three sets of steel French doors open from the loggia into the living room which has the elegance of bygone era. The view of the swimming pool outside, framed in a rectangular bevelled glass window, has the air of a large postcard from another place and time.

The house is packed with distinctive pieces of furniture, striking ornaments and richly textured and patterned fabrics, all combined with an understated sophistication.

While everyone else was embracing minimalism and downscaling their possessions, says Tracy with a laugh, they were busy finding room for a constantly expanding array of treasures gifted by family and friends.

Time spent in the house is very productive as well as relaxing. Tracy works in a studio that was originally the pool house and David in a little cottage outside. Despite her CV of award-winning and internationally acclaimed work, it’s impossible for Tracy to make a full-time career out of stage design in New Zealand, so she regularly travels overseas to work. That makes time at home even more precious.

“I made a conscious decision not to live in Australia and I feel very spoilt to be living here,” she says. “I’ve been working on a lot of ballet productions recently which has been very exciting as it’s completely visual storytelling. And I like to work with music as the other major informing device. As a designer it’s wonderful for your work to be so integral. Stage design is a crucial part of theatre and performance. It is the seed for the magic of it all.”

And the special house that Tracy and David have made even more unique is the perfect place for creating dramatic settings for such enchantment.                     

                                   
Tracy’s home is just one of the many owned by creative New Zealanders being shown on NZ House & Garden, TV ONE, Fridays at 7.30pm, supported by Mitsubishi Electric.