Jacks Point Retreat

A twenty-minute drive from Queenstown's centre, this commanding retreat holds a prime position on Jack's Point Golf Course, framed by Lake Wakatipu and the western ranges on one side and the Remarkables on the other. Built from a robust material palette of stone, concrete, steel, glass and timber, the architecture carries a quiet authority — bold in scale, yet deeply considerate of both the people who live there and the terrain it occupies. Judges for the NZIA Awards likened its stone form to "a fortification from afar," observing that the home "sits embedded in its landscape as a playful allusion to an imaginary history." Rather than a single grand gesture, the plan unfolds as a loose sequence of connected spaces, following an almost vernacular logic that gives the impression of a dwelling built up gradually over generations. Locally sourced Glenorchy stone dominates the palette, its texture and depth lending a sculptural presence that mirrors the rugged country around it — the result, as the jury summarised, is a house that "achieves grandeur without grandiosity." Jacks Point Retreat designed by Francis Whitaker when at Mason & Wales Architects