Viewing pleasure

Tauranga’s connection with water and scenery feeds the inspiration behind countless homes lucky enough to command envious views. From this Otumoetai Ridge, views change with the days and seasons.

Words Jo Ferris

Change is constant, and for this spectacular home, it not only represents a transformation of the site, but the journey of a couple who enjoy the challenge of creating something new.

That challenge began by removing the original 50s’ house from a significant site in Maxwells Road. The vision centred on views from this elevated spot – sun-drenched, with a panorama overlooking Tauranga’s inner harbour, port, Mount, and the cruise ship entrance between Mauao and Matakana Island.

Views and sun define this home’s design. Greeting both each morning is serene – either from the privacy of the master retreat upstairs, or downstairs in the family hub. The home follows the sun and ensures natural light and solar warmth is harnessed everywhere possible.

Architecturally designed, clean lines and quality construction look to the future, while staying true to the importance of function and flow. Impressive by any standard, there’s a down-to-earth warmth here that’s instantly relatable. The front-door greeting might be formal, but it quickly sways to this home’s outlook and focus on entertainment. The heated swimming pool tucks within a central courtyard to one side, which draws it almost inside the house. Clever design also incorporates a pool house with separate access to what doubles as an ensuite studio and jet ski drive-in. Perfect for spill-over visitors and brilliant recreational space when vacant.

As eyes drift to the main view, the home unveils its intriguing outlook. The sights and sounds of city life moving across Chapel Street provide the foreground for constant shipping and recreational marine activity – Mauao always in sight. Ever-changing by day, at night it’s enchanting. No need to lower the blinds here. Floor-length glazing is like a cinema screening of an endless movie. Warmth is constant, thanks to the day’s sun, while underfloor heating runs throughout the ground floor.

Open-plan living is spacious yet intimate, thanks to each area’s purpose and a masterpiece kitchen with its drawcard bar-stool feature. Clean lines match the home’s understated style, while the detail defines the craftsmanship underscoring the bespoke finish. Unique elements, fascinating nooks and niches intertwine versatility within rooms, walkways and outdoor privacy.

Ready for a new challenge, these owners will soon leave behind a special quality of life – passing on this home’s intrinsic warmth and endless fascination with the views it commands. 

80 Maxwells Road, Otumoetai

oliverroadestateagents.com

Life in harmony

Stan Walker is all grown up – and learning to find the balance between his music and his expanding whānau. 

Words Martyn Pepperell Photos Garth Badger + supplied

On 22 November 2009, a 19-year-old Stan Walker took to the stage at Australia’s storied Sydney Opera House for the grand final of Australian Idol. That night, Stan was crowned the show’s ultimate winner, his debut pop single “Black Box” became available for purchase online, and a star was born. 

Stan has become one of the most celebrated Māori singers of the new millennium in the 13 years since. Along the way, he’s dominated the top 40 music charts in Australia and New Zealand, shared arena stages with American hip-hop and RnB stars like Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, and Akon, and graced the silver screen as an actor. All the while, he’s carried himself with dignity and humility amid navigating enough tragedy and heartbreak to last several lifetimes.     

In late August, I spoke with Stan for UNO from Sony Music New Zealand's offices in Auckland, where he was conducting press for his seventh studio album, All In. In the weeks beforehand, Stan spent his days at home in Whanganui with his wife Lou Tyson, their son, and their new baby. “My biggest thing I want is to be a present husband and a present father,” he told me. “That’s important for my family, but it’s also important for me. So anything I do has to work around my family or work for us.” 

As we began talking, I asked him how his younger self would have imagined his life at age 31. “It’s a crack-up because there is nothing I’ve wanted more than being a husband and a dad,” he said with a wry grin. “I’m here now, I’ve been that, and I am that. It blows me away because I can’t imagine my life being any other way now. I complain every day about something, but I love the problems I have and the life that I’ve built.” 

Born in Melbourne on 23 October 1990 to Ross and April Walker, Stan grew up between Tamapahore Marae in Tauranga and Byron Bay. Two years ago, he opened up about the early days of his life in his first book, Impossible: My Story, co-written with the ghostwriter Margie Thomson. The stories within Impossible are harrowing and beautiful in equal measure, painting a vivid portrait of a once-in-a-generation talent with an almost limitless capacity for forgiveness. “Doing the book was one of the most incredible experiences of my life,” he said. “I knew I had to be so open and raw for it to achieve what I wanted, which was to help people heal and break cycles, bro. We’re brought up chucking everything under the carpet. I’m like, nah, I’m lifting it up. Let’s look at what’s under there.”

Earlier this year, Stan received one of his biggest nods of recognition when Elton John approved the use of his te reo Māori cover of “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?” in the recent te reo reboot of the Disney animated classic The Lion King. “There’s been a lot of things I’ve done in my life and career that have made me feel like I can die happy, but that has to be at the top of the list,” he enthused. “That’s my favourite movie of all time. To have it redone in our language and get the sign-off from the Elton John for my version, it’s so crazy.” 

Whether it’s family life, recording and performing or other activities, Stan keeps himself busy. Over the last two years, he’s appeared in The Walkers, a reality television show about his family, collaborated with the fragrance and fashion designer Jakob Carter on an Eau de Toilette fragrance called Human, and was honoured at the Ngā Tohu Toi Mo Ngā Uri Iwi o Te Rohe o Tauranga Moana Matariki Awards 2022 as Creative of the Year. He’s also released Te Arohanui, a collection of his greatest hits re-recorded in te reo Māori, continued to wow audiences, and become actively involved in promoting awareness around a range of social and environmental issues. “We work our asses off, bro,” Stan told me. “We’ve sacrificed so much to live this life we desire, but it doesn’t happen overnight.” 

Thinking back to when he started out in the music industry after Australian Idol, Stan remembered his younger self as “fresh and green”, with a burning desire to take his songs to the world. “I wanted to go to America and be an American artist,” he admitted before continuing with a chuckle. “At the moment, I couldn’t think of anything worse. I love who I am, and I love where I’m at. That’s more important to me than anything else. I love that the audiences I want to reach are in my backyard, and I love that my backyard is the most beautiful and fulfilling place with all the resources to be the best version of myself. If in the future my music does take me to America, mean, but I don’t want to be taken there and stay there. I’m really happy, bro.”

For Stan, a huge part of his current happiness came together over the last half decade, which is also the length of time he spent recording his new album, All In. “Over the last five years, the real testing times in my life happened, and so did the incredible breakthrough times,” he said. When he mentioned testing times, one of the things Stan was alluding to was having stomach removal surgery after he discovered he had gastric cancer in 2017. The cause was CDH1, a hereditary gene mutation which has claimed the lives of over two dozen of his whānau. The surgery was one thing, but recovery complications were another. For months afterwards, Stan was in a fight for his life. As his condition improved, Stan returned to one of the things he does best, making music. The incredible times were just around the corner.

Turning away from the demands of the top 40 charts, he called on a new cast of collaborators from New Zealand’s soul, hip-hop, reggae and electronica music scenes. “Every single person who worked on this album comes from different worlds,” he explained to me. “We made the whole new universe together where we could all do something different.” Within this universe, they help him craft a set of songs that reignited the fire of his youth.  “I told everyone, don’t talk to me about radio. I don’t want to hear nothing about Beyoncé is doing this, or Rihanna is doing that,” he said. “I just wanted to get back to making music that I feel. Not everyone is going to love this or even like it, but I don’t care. I’ve come to the point where if I don’t love it, what’s the point of doing it?”

While reflecting on the recording sessions, he mentioned his producers, Matt Sadgrove from the reggae band Sonz of Zion and Devin Abrams, aka Pacific Heights, a former member of the live drum’n’bass band Shapeshifter. “Bro, it was wicked working with them. Devin is the most crack-up dude ever.” Stan also had high praise for Scribe, the legendary New Zealand hip-hop artist who wrote the early 2000s anthems ‘Not Many’ and ‘Stand Up’. “Having Scribe on the album was probably one of my biggest flexes,” Stan told me. “There’s no else one that has ever been, or ever will be, a Scribe.”

One of the standout songs on All In is “The One You Want (60s Song)”, a bouncy reggae, hip-hop and RnB-tinged collaboration with the exciting Kenyan New Zealand rapper Jess B. Over the last four years, Jess and her close collaborator, the DJ Half Queen, have been the driving forces behind FILTH, an Auckland club night that places an emphasis on celebrating New Zealand’s queer, Indigenous and immigrant communities. 

Stan is a huge supporter of what they’re doing and was honoured to be able to include Jess on his album. “Bro, I reckon it’s mean,” he said. “There’s a big group of people who need to be able to express themselves freely. They need to have their people, their time, their moments, and their nights. It’s so cool to see what they’re doing. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have gotten it, but because of everything I’ve been exposed to, it makes my heart happy. I just love seeing people be free in who they are.”

Something else that makes Stan’s heart happy is spending time in the Bay. “Tauranga is huge for me because that’s where I’m from,” he told me. “That’s where my Whenua is, that’s where I will lie when I die, that’s where my upbringing was. My first inspiration for singing was my nannies while I was growing up on Tamapahore Marae. I grew up in the village. I’m still very much a village kid who is creating his own village. My core values started there, and Tauranga Moana still has my heart.” 

A self-described geek for genealogy or whakapapa, Stan draws a huge amount of strength from his family history. “People always say, remember where you come from, but that’s only one half of it,” he explained to me as we came towards the end of our interview. “The other half is who you come from. Once I found out who I come from, everything changed in a whole new way. I had to be incredible, outrageous and amazing because the people I come from are incredible.” 

Deep in thought, Stan paused for a moment before continuing with a final defining statement about both the place he calls home and his family history. “When I think about Tauranga and who I come from, I wouldn’t be here without their sacrifices. They set the standard. I am their legacy, bro, and I’m doing everything that I should be. They survived all they survived and fought all they fought for us to be incredible. They’re the biggest part, of the core, of who I am.”

Will Johnston

Meet UNO’s new columnist – a veteran radio announcer who now wields a hammer. Want a new home?

Not only will he seal that deal, he’ll marry you, too.

It was the 4th of August 1983 when I was birthed. Ok, no, we aren’t going to do my whole life story… Fun fact though, I have one sister, she’s eight months older than me. Let that land. She’s adopted. Not that weird in the end. However, when they adopted her, my parents had no idea they were a month pregnant with me. Surprise! Jury’s still out on whether that was a good surprise.

Until recently, I was mainly a radio announcer on The Hits, for 20 years. I say mainly because who has just one job anymore? I still have a local Saturday morning show (9am-12pm on 95FM… shameless!) But I’m now a real estate auctioneer. What a learning curve THAT has been for the last eight months! 

I took a leap and changed career because I thought, if I don’t do it, I’m always going to wonder what it would’ve been like. When you have those thoughts, you’ve already sub-consciously made the decision, right? I’m also a big fan of helping someone achieve something, being in front of a crowd and connecting, so it makes sense that I’m a celebrant, and MC, too. I have great work stories. I did a wedding two weeks ago where someone had to be taken away in an ambulance because they were passed out drunk at the table… before dinner! But enough work chat. 

Let me give you a snapshot of my personal life. In my spare time I like to do literally nothing. My ideal night right now would be on the couch, pizza in one hand, beer in the other watching something varying between sport or MTV’s Catfish. I’m a simple man, the key is making peace with that and then outsourcing anything in your life that is complicated, right?

I have a two-year-old ginger cavadoodle named Bear. He’s motivated by two things only; ball and food. Much like me.

Every Tuesday, I MC a quiz at The Tauriko Pub Company and have two glasses of red wine and some waffle fries while I’m doing that. On a school night, I know! CRAZY. And I’m not even sorry!

I got married last year to Tiffany. Yes, she’s nine years younger than me. Yes, I love that. Yes, she’s the best person I know and makes my life one million times more worthwhile. Gush, gush. We live at the Lakes, but I wish we lived by the beach. Or at the very least by an actual lake.

I had a chat with my wife this morning about me being the most likely person I know to get Covid; auctioneer, celebrant and MC… I probably interact with over 200 people on a quiet week. Downside = Covid. Upside = all those people have awesome, hilarious, unique and important stories. Those stories and my experiences are what I’ll cherry pick just for you in every issue of UNO forever… Or until they get sick of my drivel and sack me. Catch you next issue! 

Worldwide Wahine

In the eight years since sisters Karena and Kasey Bird wowed the Masterchef kitchen with their home-grown culinary flair, they’ve collected more awards and travelled around the globe showcasing their kai. Now Kasey has an exciting new food critic on board to taste test all their fresh ideas.

words Sue Hoffart / image Graeme Murray
Baby Koaretaia Biel is destined to eat exceptionally widely and well, given the legendary cooking prowess of his mother and aunt.

The Maketu boy was 11 weeks old when mum Kasey Bird and her older sister Karena flew to Dubai on an official government cooking mission. The television stars and award-winning cookbook publishers travelled to United Arab Emirates in January, to help showcase New Zealand’s culinary culture. During their stay, the pair undertook a cooking challenge, led a kitchen demonstration event, designed a hangi-inspired beef dish and created a Matariki-themed multi-course feast for the World Expo.

But, even while preparing a degustation dinner for international dignitaries, Kasey regularly stepped out of the kitchen with a breast pump to keep her milk supply going in readiness for their return. She did the same thing on flights, in restaurants and while holed up in a quarantine hotel. The jet-setting mum left litres of milk with her baby’s grandparents and trainee teacher father Patuara Biel, who sent daily updates and videos of their son. Meanwhile, Karena has been researching baby food traditions in other cultures, to plan Koaretaia’s first solid meals. An Indian-inspired dahl perhaps? Or a turmeric-laced puree using vegetables grown in his grandparents’ garden. They also like the Chinese tradition of giving teething babies dried fish to gnaw on, though of course theirs would come from Bay of Plenty waters.

The sisters (Te Arawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Manawa) are determined this baby will be raised by  whānau, with his feet in Maketu sand and his taste buds roaming the world. It’s a recipe that has certainly worked for them.

Growing up in the coastal village, east of Tauranga, the pair would dash across the road after school to swim or gather shellfish. Their earliest memories revolve around digging for pipi in the estuary, then cooking the molluscs on an old cake rack over an open fire on the sand. 

“It felt so safe, really idyllic,” Kasey says of their Maketu childhood. “It was normal to let kids go to the beach by themselves. Mum could see us from home and our Aunty would whistle and all the kids knew it was time to come home.”

“Every Sunday, we would have this big pot luck dinner with all the family and friends, everyone bringing a different dish. And we’re the type of kids, if we saw something we didn’t recognise, that’s what we wanted to try.”

Food dominates their memories. Kasey has always been drawn to the kitchen, while her sister was the eager eater in the family. It was Kasey who caught and smoked her own fish and pestered aunts and grandmothers for lessons and recipes or begged for cookbook gifts each Christmas. Although her sibling had little interest in cooking, she was equally excited by a good meal. Especially if it involved new flavours.

Karena recalls marvelling at the magical ingredients – capers, olives, sundried tomatoes – in a salad her aunt brought to the house. Her sister was certain she had found “the nicest thing on earth” after tasting crème brulée for the first time.

Kasey was 10 when the girls’ parents Kerry and Atarangi Bird shepherded the family onto a plane and headed overseas, intent on expanding their daughters’ horizons.

“They always wanted us to know where we’re from and be grounded,” Karena says. “And they also wanted us to see the world was a big place, to see a world full of possibilities.” 

Decades after ticking off Los Angeles and New York, London, Paris and Sweden, it is the culinary memories that linger. They still talk about discovering fresh pretzels and just-made lemonade, sushi and Mexican food for the first time. Or the French bistro where they happily ate lentils with sausages and “really stinky cheese”.

As teenagers, the sisters would scour ‘top 50’ restaurant lists and pool their pocket money before driving to Auckland to dine out. 

“When we were in high school, food was all we talked about. While our friends bought concert tickets and clothes and CDs, we would save up money to go and eat in restaurants. We’d take pictures, try new things, then come back to Maketu and try to replicate it.”

Their horrified parents  – this dining out compulsion was wasteful according to chartered accountant dad and university lecturer mum – insisted the duo pursue proper careers. Both made choices that now confound them. 

Kasey initially studied fashion in Melbourne until homesickness drew her home, where she enrolled in an accountancy degree and found local work auditing health contracts. Her sibling headed to Wellington to begin Bachelor of Commerce studies. 

Neither was particularly interested in balance sheets or finance and neither was destined to complete her degree.

Instead, Kārena decided to attend the cordon bleu cook school in Sydney, while obsessively watching competitive cooking television programme Masterchef New Zealand.

“My flatmates thought I was crazy. I’d never cooked one meal in the flat and on leaving night, they gave me a Masterchef cookbook and wrote ‘can’t wait till you’re on the cover one day’. They were thinking it was a big joke. I still have that book.”
Karena only ventured into the kitchen once she was home again, intent on saving and practicing for her pending culinary training. With no restaurants nearby and no escaping the family cooking schedule, she threw herself into trialling techniques and trying to outdo her sister when it was her night to cook.

“I was making up for lost time,” she says. “I cooked heaps. I’d watch food shows then recreate it. I learnt a lot.”

Without realising it, the sisters were also amassing a portfolio of images, menus and experiences that would impress television producers looking for talent to feature on the show. A week after submitting their application, the duo had an interview and launched into auditions. 

The rest is history. In 2014, the Te Puke High School graduates – Karena is a former head girl – attained national celebrity by winning the reality show Masterchef New Zealand. Their own travel cooking series followed; Karena and Kasey’s Kitchen Diplomacy saw the pair film 20 episodes in 20 countries over a two year period, with a host of impressive international cooking engagements on the side. Trips to Asia and Europe and South America were interspersed with five separate stints in China, work for wine and food companies and starring roles in a food safety programme for the Ministry of Primary Industries. They have also run a diabetes education programme for kuia and kaumatua in a community hall in Murupara. And they have self-published two sell-out cookbooks, the first of which collected an international award. Their third book is expected to hit shelves later this year and will be written entirely in Te Reo, with pages of text and glossy photographs laid out in their parents’ house. Kasey and her husband live across the road and Karena is a one-minute walk away. Master Koaretaia is passed between all three homes and adored by everyone, including youngest Bird sibling Michaela. Auntie Michaela is an actress living in Auckland but spends plenty of weekends back home, doting on her nephew.

Maketu is the well-travelled sisters’ turangawaewae, the place they come home to for a dose of reality and unconditional love. Their mum will ask whether they have done their laundry and insist they place newspaper on the floor while cooking, to mop up any mess. No-one cares that Karena has been dining in an exclusive restaurant overlooking 15,000 fish inside the world’s largest aquarium. Or that she had to pick gold leaf out of her teeth. Back home, she is expected to rinse her dinner plates and contribute to family life.

“I think it’s what keeps everything in perspective,” Kasey says. “Just being part of the fabric of whanau and community, everyone is just the same. 

“I like to think we have the best of both worlds, that idea that a modern woman can have your baby and go to Dubai. And eat truffle and go to the marae and be in the kitchen with the aunties. The next generation can have all of that. You can still be worldly and still be really grounded.”

It was their grandfather who arrived in nearby Te Puke, from Rotorua, to open a branch of the family’s jeans manufacturing company before moving to Maketu. But the Birds have had holiday homes in the beach community for six generations;  Kasey lives in a house her paternal great great grandparents once inhabited. In recent years, they learned a Scottish female forebearer opened Te Puke’s first bakery in the 1800s.

“We loved growing up in Maketu. It’s still unspoilt, it’s remained that real quintessential beach town. It’s such a safe haven for us.

“Travel definitely gave us the real deep appreciation of where we come from and of our family.”

It also helped shape their determination to learn te reo. Although they spoke the language as young girls and grew up around it – their mother is a Maori language lecturer – their enthusiasm waned. That interest was reignited through learning about other nations’ culture, language and history and realising they knew too little of their own. 

“Being Maori is really important to us but we almost started to feel like imposters,” Kasey says.” People were so proud of us but we didn’t have the language.”

It was Kārena who pushed for them both to place their international schedule on hold and spend a year at Waikato University’s Tauranga campus, learning te reo full time. They did still squeeze in work trips to Fiji, China and Taiwan before emerging as fluent speakers, at the end of 2019.

The timing has been remarkably fortuitous. As Covid slammed international borders shut, their new skill led to new work. Like a string of Matariki-related engagements or the television miniseries that saw them teach a master class in cooking, solely in te reo. Or the  nine-course fine dining event that tells the Maori creation story through food.

“I think the best thing about learning it, though, is the feeling we have, feeling complete. And now, having a baby, it makes it all worthwhile. He’s going to have both languages.”

This year will bring another round of speaking engagements and celebrity cheffing roles, including high guest spots in the inaugural Flavours of Plenty festival. Their Hangi With Karena and Kasey event promises “a deeply cultural feast” that blends traditional cooking techniques with modern twists, whilst celebrating the Bay’s plentiful plethora of produce.

No doubt there will be more international travel in future, too.

“Always, all the time, we are looking at each other and saying ‘how good is our life?’,” Karena says of their last eight adventurous years. 

“We never take it for granted,” her younger sister chimes in. “We always pinch ourselves.”

Division of labour

Much of the sisters’ work and home life is deeply enmeshed. They even refer to Koaretaia as “our baby” and Karena attended a few antenatal classes when the father-to-be couldn’t make it.

But they do take account of each other’s strengths when it comes to sharing the load.

Kasey is the organised one, the logistics and planning expert. She is happiest behind the scenes and her accounting background has come in handy after all; she looks after the finances. 

Karena is the outgoing people person. She’s more bossy, generally takes the lead in the kitchen when it comes to plating food and tends to do the talking in public, though Kasey has plenty to say one on one. 

Karena likes to claim she brings the x-factor to the partnership. “And the humility,” she jokingly adds, as the sisters break into laughter. 

“Being sisters, we just know what our roles are without even talking about it. We have this innate understanding.”

Would they ever consider splitting up to pursue separate careers? Especially now there is a baby in the mix?

“We’re not for or against the idea,” Kasey says. “If something came up for Karena that was really awesome, we’d just be happy for each other. We want what’s best for each other.”