Spacious yet intimate home celebrates the winter playground 

A gold award and overall category winner in the ‘Builders Own Home’ bracket of the 2021 Registered Master Builders Southern Region House of the Year Awards.

Exacting craftmanship and attention to detail throughout makes this generously proportioned family home in Wanaka an absolute standout.

The setting on a peninsula in Beacon Point could not be more spectacular. Overlooking the calm waters of Lake Wanaka with a majestic backdrop of Mount Gold and Treble Cone Ski Field, it is a fantastic playground for the six Carnie children, whose father Justin Carnie, Managing Director of CDL Building built the home.

Living a very active Wanaka lifestyle with a strong outdoor focus and lots happening indoors and out, Justin says, the family needed a house that catered to their diverse needs. The Mount Gold residence is 550m2 and contains a mix of large, double-height spaces where everyone can come together, along with more intimate spaces for solitude and separation.

Three gabled pavilions look towards the west, capturing evening sun and views out over the swimming pool towards the mountains beyond.  Each pavilion is staggered in plan, creating a choice of exterior spaces for shelter, sun or shade, depending on different times of the day and year. A morning courtyard is a lovely place to enjoy coffee, another to escape the wind, while a large covered outdoor room with a stone fireplace is a great entertainment space leading to the pool.

The voluminous double height central pavilion combines the kitchen, dining and living areas, separating the master bedroom pavilion from the children’s wing and media room. The three are linked by a flat roofed corridor with a rear entry that shelters from the wind.

Justin’s commitment to perfection is evident in every detail throughout the home, which showcases complex carpentry with robust exposed Spruce tongue and groove over Oregon rafters, counterpointed by delicate steel tension trusses in the main living areas.

As a builder, he is a massive fan of timber, which is why he chose to make a feature of imported Canadian Oregon for the ceiling and soffits with burnt Larch weatherboards as exterior cladding.

Photography: Simon Devitt 

Words: Vicki Holder