Thanks to Melissa for the tip.

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Photographs by Brian Swale.

The house was recently redesigned by HMA and features in Jeremy Hansen’s essential Modern book.

Paul Litterick mentions it in the  in the New Zealand Listener

The Clifton Hill House in Sumner, designed by Ernest Kalnins in 1965, has been given a fashionable stone garage and a stockade fence. It stands as a commentary on our times: the original house is open and full of light, welcoming and looking out to sea; the external additions on the landward side are like a fortress. Ours is a more frightened society than theirs.

In 1959 I was having an evening meal at the Coffee Pot on New Regent Street with Miles. During the course of the meal I informed Miles that I had decided to build a small house on a section of my property at Halswell because I was ‘sick of living in a town flat without any area of garden’. His large eyebrows shot up to the top of his forehead and I was fixed with what can only described as a baleful stare. ‘Who, might I enquire, is designing this establishment for you?’ he enquired. When I produced with some reluctance a piece of graph paper on which I had inscribed my ideas, he contemplated it for a few seconds, folded it and put it in his pocket. ‘Gould’ he said, ‘I will not have you living in a builder’s bungalow and I will send you a drawing in a week’s time.’

The plan duly arrived a few days later, and it was so obviously superior in every respect that I could only agree to proceed. It differed from the normal small bungalows of those days with innovative features like insulated concrete-slab flooring, exposed beams supporting the roof, open areas of ceiling extending to kitchen via glass panelling, exposed concrete-block walls, and doors of vertical wooden strips. When built the effect was of a much larger and airier house than the small bungalow that was the reality.

The pleasure which I derived from living in it arose from a combination of practical and aesthetic features: the good insulation arising from the slab and the linings of the walls and roof; the validity of the structure and its materials, which were all visible; and the sheer practicality of the basic design of a minimalist house. Today all this appears quite normal and ordinary, but in 1957 it should be remembered that, due to the war and the Depression, virtually nothing had been built since about 1928, and most of the concepts, particularly relating to the use of concrete, were new.

When some years later my wife and I built a larger house on the adjoining site we incorporated the same basic ideas — perhaps the only major improvement being covered ceilings which I think give a more pleasing balance to the rooms.

Christchurch Art Gallery B.156

The house is mentioned in Julia Gatley’s book Athfield Architects:

Concurrent with his university work, Athfield produced sketch designs from Auckland but did not have time to do anything more and Tony used the Canterbury Draughting & Design Service for the developed design and working drawings. Some changes were made to the initial design before construction started.

A separate studio (Tony is a musician and photographer) was designed by Ath and built out back in 1975.