Front and centre |
|
Two years after sabotaging her partner’s beloved macrocarpa-lined living room with a can of white paint, Julie Duncan remains unrepentant. A minor furore also followed her attack on the floorboards, armed with dark brown paint and a roller, but she shrugs it off. And she laughs about evicting a cherished rimu table from the dining area.
“I hated that table,” she says, grinning and rolling her eyes at the inexplicable bond between men and unadorned timber. “You’ve got to work on the ‘forgiveness is easier than permission’ principle. They might never give you permission but, eventually, they will forgive you.”
Fortunately, Kerry Nott is a magnanimous man. Over the years, the Opotiki pharmacist has learned to trust Julie’s instincts when it comes to beautifying their eastern Bay of Plenty beachfront home. He can even laugh at the way his choice of artwork starts out in the living room, is relegated to the hall and then a downstairs room before disappearing altogether.
But he was taken aback the day Julie sawed through a downstairs wall to alter their front entranceway. He then discovered, after a weekend away, that his wood-lined living room walls had been coated in white paint. “Oh, it was war,” says Julie of the macrocarpa-smothering incident. “But he loves it now.”
The large, light, bright, high-ceilinged room is the heart of the busy Duncan-Nott home. It’s here that the couple’s seven adult children – theirs is a blended family – frequently gather for summer visits and big celebrations, often with friends, partners and offspring in tow.
Grandchildren clamber on the furniture and neighbours wander in off the beach for afternoon drinks after shared fishing expeditions. Sofas and tables are hauled aside for parties and the doors are flung open to access wide, tiered decking and even wider views of pretty Bryan’s Beach.
For their next function, Kerry and Julie will install a band, turn their living area into a temporary dance floor and host about 200 people to raise funds for their local hospice service. Two years ago they asked party guests to bring Christmas gifts and distributed a truckload of toys to children around the East Cape.
They always host the neighbourhood New Year’s Eve party, stoking up the pizza oven hidden in their backyard, surrounded by fairy lights. One resident obtains a fire permit and everyone else helps gather wood and build a bonfire on the beach out front.
“It’s Grand Central Station,” says Julie. “Of course people want to come and stay with you when you live at the beach. In summer we are at work all day and we come home and it’s like we’re on holiday – there are surfboards and beach towels everywhere. It is a very cool place for the kids to come to because it’s like coming home to the bach.”
Alongside the home’s long, rustic dining table, a blackboard provides an ever-changing record of the inhabitants’ antics and thoughts. Guests and family like to take up the chalk and have their say and frequent visitors often look to the blackboard to see what they’ve missed.
Late one night, an Irish guest covered the board with lyrics to Maori songs. When Julie’s son Isaac was in Afghanistan with the army two years ago the family wrote birthday messages to him. Arguments are played out, inspiring quotes noted. “It’s a running commentary about the household,” Julie says.
The couple had admired the board and batten beach house and its prime location while living in nearby Waiotahi, but it took two years of persistence and a little liquid courage to seal the deal.
“Every so often we’d have a few drinks and ring the owner up and say, ‘Come on, Brenda, why don’t you sell us your house?’”
Then, 13 years ago, they unexpectedly received the answer they wanted and moved their belongings and four children along the coast to Bryan’s Beach, 10 minutes’ drive from Opotiki township.
“It is tranquil and beautiful out here,” says Julie. “There are never more than 12 people on the beach at one time, even on a busy day.”
The coastal area is safe for swimming and ideal for Kerry’s evening walks with the dogs. Straight out to sea, White Island puffs away and dolphins and the occasional pod of whales send bach dwellers scurrying for binoculars.
Winter brings spectacular storms and sunsets that paint the sky lurid pinks and oranges. The few tourists depart with the cooler weather and prevailing westerly winds die away.
Kerry likens his home – and the Opotiki region – to living with a pair of old socks. “When you put on something that you love, you’re so comfortable in it. I have an incredibly busy business… Coming home, it’s like my sanctuary, my serenity.”
Though the couple both appreciate their home and lifestyle and the friends and neighbours in their quiet little beach settlement, Julie admits to occasional cravings for the buzz and hum of a larger centre. When home feels too hushed, she can escape to her tiny cottage at Mount Maunganui for a more action-packed beachside experience.
More often, though, it is girlfriend and neighbour Felicity Barry who arrives on her doorstep to banish any sense of isolation. Aside from fostering Julie’s addiction to locally produced art, Felicity shares her interest in interior design and has had a great influence on the look of the house. Together, the pair hatch the kind of renovation plans that make Kerry nervous.
Next on their list, reveals Julie mischievously, is dealing to the macrocarpa ceiling with a paintbrush and can of pale paint.
Click on the "photo gallery" link at top right for more images from this story, including web-exclusive photos.
* The Duncan-Nott home is among 10 coastal properties in the January 2010 Toast to the Coast house tour, fundraising for Hospice Eastern Bay of Plenty; see toasttothecoast.co.nz
Story: Sue Hoffart
Photographs: Simon Young
| 
|
| 
