44 | DEVELOPMENT Brooksfield: Bishop St T T Karen Phelps ‘Good architecture makes a good city’ Brooksfield co-directors Ollie Hickman, left, and Vinny Holloway. When Brooksfield director Vinny Holloway first saw a site in Bishop Street, Christchurch for sale it was partly an emotional decision to purchase it. “The first house I had in Christchurch when I first moved here was just across the road. So the street was near and dear to me after having lived there and renovated an old villa there,” he says. The tree-lined street was also incredibly close to the central city and his partner Tess, who didn’t drive at the time they lived there, had found it handy to walk to town and the Edgeware shops. Now all 13 homes in the resulting Brooksfield development have long sold with people starting to make memories of their own in the street. The project, like most Brooksfield developments, was designed by Londoner Ben Pentreath. “We wanted something that really fitted into the area, which is full of timber weatherboard cottages, villas and bungalows,” says Vinny. The Brooksfield project is Georgian style cottages clad in timber weatherboard, all painted a traditional shadow white with a mix of green and dark red roofs. Large Georgian windows adorn the cottages, which also boast 2.7m ceilings downstairs. There are a mix of two bedrooms plus study and one and half bathroom homes with garage and three bedrooms, two and a half bathroom homes with garage. Vinny says the three bedroom option was a new offering utilising attic space above the garage to house the master bedroom with ensuite. Although it’s accessed from the main house it functions like a separate wing to the home offering more private area. Particularly gratifying was the fact that every purchaser was an owner-occupier and four people moved to Christchurch to take up the Brooksfield relocation offer. Brooksfield has clearly set itself apart in the development landscape of Christchurch with a mission to make Christchurch beautiful again by delivering exceptionally designed townhouses within five minutes of the CBD including Edgeware, St Albans, Sydenham, Addington, Spreydon and the Central City. The focus is on two, three and four-bedroom townhouses and terraced houses complete with garages and car parking. They also offer select stand-alone homes. “We loved the style of homes in Christchurch before the earthquake and want to help create a city that people still love to live in through its architecture.” Vinny owns Brooksfield, founded in 2018, with co-director Ollie Hickman. Both partners bring complementary skill sets to the table. While Ollie studied property valuation at Lincoln University, Vinny is a qualified builder. Brooksfield homes focus on warmth, sustainability, energy efficiency and natural products with New Zealand woollen carpets, woollen insulation source from Banks Peninsula, solar panels (which Vinny says saves about half the power bill), plant based paints and argon-filled/low-E double-glazed windows. While in the past their focus on delivering historic style homes was on the exterior now updated interiors have a classical historic home feel too including traditional skirtings, architraves, cornices, kitchen tapware and tiles. Outside, there are mature plantings and thoughtfully designed paths and fences to create private spaces with an established look and feel. Unsurprisingly Vinny says most homes are snapped up off the plans. “Good architecture makes a good city and that’s why we’re developing as many nice houses as we can. We’re really trying to create different styles for the same price point that others are building black and white plaster/ linear weatherboard houses. Everyone who builds and buys homes in Christchurch is contributing to the city’s look and feel and that is quite a responsibility. At Brooksfield we believe we need to design carefully to shape the city we want to live in.” Your reliable Electrical Business in Christchurch Residential & Commercial developments Renovations and Maintenence PROUDLY SUPPORTING BROOKSFIELD 027 503 3696 dylan@metaelectrical.co.nz www.metaelectrical.co.nz M: 0277 336 623 | E: admin@erect.nz | erectscaffolding.co.nz
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