The owners had previously resided in a terrace house in Grey Lynn and holidayed on Waiheke on many occasions at a friend's holiday home. Then in 1995 they bought 20 Great Barrier Road (a section and small 1 bedroom bach) with the idea of establishing a family home near the beach. The site was perfect for establishing productive gardens and an orchard and the first part of development involved terracing the steep slopes to make garden areas facing the sun and having protection from the cold southerly and south westerly winds. Building the car deck was the second stage, giving easy access off the street. Then establishing the workshop building which was to provide a temporary home while the house was being built. The main house was started in 1997 by a builder from New Plymouth who liked to build architects houses, something with character and a challenge. The concept for the design came from the idea of a house being very open, that is sharing spaces - a bit like the old original bach idea. The environmental benefits of the house being open are that the lower level doors and windows can be opened to allow airflow up through the house. This ventilates and helps to cool down spaces in summer. In winter, low sun angles penetrate the house and warm the massive walls inside which act as heat sinks. In the absence of sun, winter warming is added by the Stanley cooker that provides hot water for domestic water by heating coils through the ground level slab and also passing through the 3 radiators in the house. The use of the Stanley cooker has intensified over recent years, with power prices increasing, to the point that over winter we have the hot water heating turned off from the power supply. The cooker is lit every second day to maintain enough hot water for one family and therefore we gain a substantial reduction in our power. Of equal importance as the attributes of the house design, is the size of the sit