74 | BUILDING Landmark Homes Hawke’s Bay T T Virginia Wright Winning home with a winning view The stunning Havleock North home was recently awarded at the Registered Master Builders House of the Year 2025 competition as one of the Top 100 builds nationally. With low maintenance in mind as well as aesthetics the house combines the locally sourced Hinuera stone with metal cladding on the three pavilions that all prioritise the Te Mata Peak view. Steven Painter with his two fellow directors Gerry Schumacher and Tony Lafferty started Landmark Homes Hawke’s Bay three years ago but, as Steven points out, the fact that he and Gerry have also owned the Landmark Homes Taupō since 2014 meant they have systems and processes proven to be successful. While Hawke’s Bay was arguably a new business, they had years of experience feeding into its apparently quick success, explains Steven. “Anyone can build a house but not everyone can build a home and have the systems and processes in place to do it well, and it comes back to us as directors and our 50 years of combined experience between us, plus another 20 with our project management team in the office,” he says. “There’s not a lot we haven’t seen, and we have checklists designed to pick up on the details that make a difference.” A recently completed home with views of Te Mata Peak not far out of Havelock North clearly demonstrates their winning combination of design flair and attention to detail having won several awards in the East Coast and Hawke’s Bay Region of the Registered Master Builders House of the Year awards 2025. Clients Craig and Jacqui Sims had a site looking directly out to Te Mata Peak, but the original house wasn’t oriented to capture the view. “It was a remove and rebuild and all their scope was that they wanted one pavilion with kitchen living dining looking straight at Te Mata Peak. I sat in their old lounge, and I could see that an H-shaped home with three gables would work perfectly and we got the concept drawing right with just a few tweaks on the second sketch,” explains Steven. With low maintenance in mind as well as aesthetics the house combines the locally sourced Hinuera stone with metal cladding on the three pavilions that all prioritise the Te Mata Peak view and work with the sun to make the most of the site. It was recently awarded at the Registered Master Builders House of the Year 2025 competition as one of the Top 100 builds nationally, plus the Regional Category Winner, Regional Kitchen Excellence Award, and Regional Gold for the Resene New Home $2m to $4m category. In order for a house to win the Gold it has to score over 1750 out of a possible 2000 points and the Te Mata house, built to Landmark’s exacting standards, scored 1900. The highly specced kitchen, complete with a temperature controlled wine room, had also received a Highly Commended in the 2025 TIDA (Trends International Design Awards) New Zealand Kitchens Awards earlier in the year. Celebrating craftsmanship and design, this 369sqm house is precisely the sort of home the clients dreamed of.
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