Featured in NZ Womens Weekly, 1963. “Mrs Selwyn Carson told Peter Beaven she admired the ‘cots’ at Akaroa and wanted ‘a modern interpretation of a traditional stye cottage with a verandah’. Mrs Carson, a doctor’s wife with four children, had also requested that the house be childproof or more specifically boy-proof.”Beaven obliged by creating a two-storeyed home in which the boys pursued a near self-contained existence under the gabled eaves of the roof. Downstairs an economically planned 1920-square-foot suit of communal and adult rooms sat upon an electrically heated concrete floor.

The original periscope roof has regrettably been modified to make it more traditional. The rest of the house looks pretty original and intact. There was an old Fiat 500 in the driveway – extra points for that.