Marty’s Lane in Queenstown is starting to live up to his name, with builder Marty Hulsman building two of the three homes on the lane, renovating the third, and now building the fourth.
1 Marty’s Lane is a new home for the sister of a previous client, for whom Marty’s firm M&S Construction built New Zealand’s finest southern home as recognised by the Registered Master Builders 2016 House of the Year competition. With that accolade backing up his work, Marty still tendered for the 1 Marty’s Lane project.
“They had a budget and they wanted to make sure they had a reasonably accurate idea of how much it was going to cost,” Marty says. “A few things had to be pruned from the plan to hit their budget.”The home was designed by Christine Hall, an architect Marty works with regularly and who also designed the 2016 award-winning home.
“She’s great to work with, we understand each other pretty well,” Marty says. “She’s got a very good mind’s eye and there’s not much we can’t solve over the telephone.”1 Marty’s Lane has similarities to the award-winning home, in that it follows the contour of the land just about perfectly, and has curves in its roof.
“The home is an S shape based on opposing radius points,” Marty says. “The rafters radiate like spokes on a wheel and every wall is at a different radius. Christine draws it, and we have to work out how to make it and get it to stand up.”
The S shape means frames have to be made insitu, rather than premade in a factory and adding significant time to the construction programme. Plywood is cut on a CNC machine to match the length of the radius, then laminated then screwed together.
The plywood is 18mm thick, and M&S Construction puts five lengths together to come up with a good solid structure that will hold its shape on site. Marty says he is very reliant on his staff who are very experienced.
The team at M&S Construction are all older builders, including a recently qualified 45-year-old who has just finished his apprenticeship with M&S Construction and is the youngest of the team.
“With the amount of experience on the team, we can identify any potential problems before they arise,” Marty says. “We aim to get things right the first time, we are all about quality and giving the clients what they want.”
Over the years, Marty and the team have learned communication is as important as construction, because it enables them to truly partner with their clients to deliver exactly what they want, and ensures they enjoy the process from beginning to end.
The M&S Construction team is enjoying its time working on 1 Marty’s Lane. “It’s technical enough, it’s different enough, the sort of thing not everyone can do. We’re just framing up the roof, but we’ve already had people stop and comment as they walk past.”
