Mitchell & Stout on the North Shore

David Mitchell & Julie Stout's home on Auckland's North Shore is a complex beast, so let's take a slow tour of the exterior, courtesy of our photographer Patrick Reynolds. Here's a view of the house from the street, looking up at the top-floor terrace:

This is a view of the main entrance, sheltered by a large polycarbonate sheet that sends rainwater into the half-pipe you can see in this shot. In rainstorms, the water rockets along it towards the tank:

The polycarbonate sheet in the shot below serves the purpose of lending privacy to the kitchen, without diminishing the amount of light that gets in there. You can see the lower slopes of Rangitoto in the distance in this shot, as well as the home's 'moat' with water lilies.

And here's another view of the 'moat', this time looking from between the house and the garden studio, which sits at a slightly offset angle to it. At some times of the day, the sunlight reflecting off the water creates a lovely quality of light inside the ground-floor flat occupied by Julie's mother.

This view is of the ramp leading from the garden to what Julie and David call the 'back' door of the house, which opens into the kitchen and dining area.

Come back and visit the blog next week and we'll take you for a few more photo tours, including David and Julie's garden studio, and some of the other Home of the Year houses.