Creative family gets hands-on with their new build – Stuff.co.nz

With the right equipment, nine-year-old Ollie can slide most of the way from his hilltop home to the dam below for a swim. All he needs is a decent cardboard box.

The Blenheim schoolboy and his older siblings, Archie, 10, and Sophia, 12, have free range over the 30ha property where their parents Jenny and Christo Saggers have created a one-of-a-kind home.

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Paul McCredie/Nz House & Garden

Sophia reads on the sofa that overlooks the Wairau Valley and Richmond Ranges: Our favourite season is autumn when the colours of the grapevines after harvest turn from green to yellow to orange to brown, with each grape variety changing colour at different times. Its like one big patchwork quilt and its beauty never ceases to take our breath away, says Jenny; Christo made the 10-seater dining table from European birch plywood and American white oak veneer.

Jenny grew up further around the hill in much the same way as her children; building makeshift sleds or huts amid the pine trees, looking for frogs and tadpoles and hunting rabbits with a slug gun. These days, her children also have the irrigation dam where they kayak and leap off a jetty.

She and Christo subdivided a piece of the property where her brothers still farm these days it's grapes as well as sheep and beef and where her mother and stepfather still reside. The property has been in the family for more than 100 years.

"We are so lucky to be here, with all eight cousins at the same school," Jenny says.

English-born Christo has forged his own ties to this land and, in the process, transformed their precious piece of arid Marlborough countryside into a lush haven. The geologist travelled to more than 80 countries and sampled a swag of careers before finding his two greatest loves Jenny and landscape design after settling in New Zealand.

"Christo is one of those people who can do anything," Jenny says. "He's done business development for a hunting company and installed satellite communications on cruise liners. He did an overland trip from London to Australia raising money for Romanian orphans. But he has always been green-fingered and loved design."

The Englishman learned to love plants during a childhood in a moated 16th century Tudor hall with 4ha of gardens. After moving to New Zealand and meeting marketing brand manager Jenny, he retrained as a landscape designer.

Jenny had plenty of input into the design of their four-bedroom home, but it was Christo who planned the garden and created a scale model of the house they wanted. He took into account the unforgiving summer sun and passive heating sources for winter warmth, and considered the views from every room. No wide hallways, no wasted space. A draughtsman then produced drawings of the miniature Corflute house, which included furniture, a fireplace, power points and outdoor edifices.

"When we started to build, it was just a bare brown hill," says Jenny. "Not a tree, nothing at all. We are now surrounded by a tropical green oasis."

Paul McCredie/NZ House & Garden

Visitors are always surprised to find a lush courtyard in Marlborough hill country; the gabion water feature and the banana and bangalow palms add a Balinese feel; Christo designed the day bed so it can separate to form a coffee table and U-shaped seating area.

The secret is water and careful plant selection, as well as solid shelter from the fierce nor'westerly wind that typically pummels the region. To that end, the couple created gabions. They bought wire baskets and carted wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of stone onto the site before setting each rock in place, one at a time, to create the desired effect.

Christo chose hardy ngaio trees to quickly form a sheltered area for the pool and allow less hardy favourites to blossom. As a result, the easy-care pool garden includes long-flowering gaura and striking Lomandra Tanika.

"He's also done a lot of the building inside and out. The shelves and bedheads, kids' beds and desks. The dining table and the outdoor structures by the pool and in the courtyard were all made and designed by us."

When they needed more privacy in their bathroom but didn't have money to buy blinds, her husband whipped up sets of shutters and drilled holes in them to admit light and create a striking effect. A client's old, unwanted table became a set of doors for the poolside changing room. Concrete boxing timber was repurposed as an outdoor tabletop.

"We've been on a budget so if we need something, instead of going out and buying it we figure out how we can make it. We've definitely saved money but it also means other people don't have what we have."

Jenny, who now works as an interior designer, has made plenty of her own hands-on contributions. When their bare walls needed art, she bought canvases and took up a paintbrush. Christo framed the paintings. It was also Jenny's idea to print photographs and glue them to the kitchen doors.

"It's our family history and it gives me a lot of joy to look at those photos of my little people. They're literally stuck on with PVA glue so you can just update them as new memories are created."

Ten years on from completion, the couple says their home works better than they imagined for them and for the constant flow of neighbourhood children, family and friends. "And this house is very, very us, not just bought off the shelf."

Q&A

When I'm not designing: I like to write. I've written for quite a few publications and have had a novel on the backburner for 12 years. (Christo)

I'm obsessed with: Fabrics. I did my post-grad in wool marketing and while studying, I spent three months in a Scottish textile mill. I also worked for Merino NZ and Swanndri. (Jenny)

Latest DIY project: The aquaponic system I've developed. I've built a grow house where the plants grow in gravel, fed with water and fish poo. (Christo)

Best local event: Malborough's spectacular Classic Fighters air show. We usually have a party for our friends and watch the planes fly right over us, it's an amazing sight. (Jenny)

Our newest venture: The landscaping and interior design business Jenny and I launched last year, called Collaborate. (Christo)

Jenny and Christo Saggers

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Creative family gets hands-on with their new build - Stuff.co.nz