Inside New Zealand Rustic: How farmer Malcolm Rough redefined natural home design

Presenting a home is a lot like how people look each other in the eye when shaking hands. It is about establishing a sense of trust, of one person feeling they are beginning to know another person through the cues their home gives. Paired with a warm invitation to a comfortable chair or sofa, and happy relationships begin to flourish.

The owners of Waiau Homestead perched above Wainui Beach, Gisborne, like to sleep outside. Old baskets from the Gisborne Wharf are used to store pinecones. Photo / Tessa Chrisp

This is why home staging is a useful tool when selling a home; prospective buyers don’t want to get to know the departing homeowners. Instead, a potential purchaser wants to imagine their personality filling the space.

An unstaged home speaks volumes. Is it messy and disorganised; brightly coloured with quirky elements; is it minimalist with cool lines and only hints of individuality; is it orderly, well-maintained?

Rustic homes

Mahia farmer Malcolm Rough developed an interest in rustic-inspired home decor after he and his family spent more than three decades restoring a dilapidated villa overlooking the coast south of Gisborne. Rereading a book about Scandi interior decor for the fourth time, he wondered why the book intrigued him.

Malcolm Rough of Mahia commissioned a book, New Zealand Rustic, creating a home inspired by nature, after developing an interest in rustic-inspired home decor.

“It made me ask why I loved my home so much, and why I’d done what I did with the decor. I started to get excited about what else I could do,” Rough says. “Was there a New Zealand version of the Scandi rustic theme? Was there a unique New Zealand approach to this style which captured aspects of our country more faithfully than an imported decorating approach?”

He commissioned a small team (including me as the writer, and my former colleagues from NZ House & Garden and NZ Life & Leisure, art director Yolanta Woldendorp and photographer Tessa Chrisp) to produce a book demonstrating New Zealanders’ approach to creating a rustic-inspired home. The book New Zealand Rustic: Creating a Home Inspired by Nature is the result.

Malcolm Rough’s restored villa, Te Au Homestead, in Māhia, Hawke’s Bay. Photo / Tessa Chrisp

“It is a rich journey,” Rough says of the many months he spent working intensely with Woldendorp to find appropriate homes to bring his vision into life.

“I learned that budget has little to do with creating a home that is good for the soul. I was adamant that these homes not be overly styled but as we live in them. In some cases, they are decorated with treasures that have been with the owners for decades, happily moving house several times.”

A cosy corner in Malcolm Rough’s Te Au Homestead. Behind the rattan chairs are two Māori figurines by the late Peggy Ericksen. The telescope is used to view Māhia’s pristine night sky. The overhead light is made from steam-bent and thin-cut rimu, from Faye Williams Lamps in Nelson. Photo / Tessa Chrisp

Rough’s resulting handsome coffee-table book features six New Zealand homes, epitomising a unique response to the immediate New Zealand landscape. It also includes chapters with practical how-to tips on lighting, textures, colours, styling, and the use of natural light and air.

In the past few decades, rustic decor has become commonplace in high-end lodges in remote areas offering guests a connection with nature.

That connection with nature has been popular with generations of Kiwis who left their everyday homes and jobs to retreat to the bach, crib or humble holiday home in the bush or near the beach.

The owners of Waiau Homestead above Wainui Beach, Gisborne, collect treasures and antiques from secondhand shops and auction houses to furnish their villa. Their home is featured in a book, New Zealand Rustic. Photo /Tessa Chrisp

Furniture was often recycled from the “Aunty Peggy’s old sofa” school-of-decor. Kitchen cupboards were home to wobbly piles of mismatched plates, bedrooms housed bunks, rollaway beds or a grandparent’s old (ridiculously narrow) double bed.

Flower arrangements were as likely roadside weeds, collected and artfully arranged in whatever jam jar had been emptied that week, as florist bouquets. This century’s grander, and no doubt more comfortable, holiday homes provide more of a “Remuera on sea” experience and are decorated in accordance.

Perhaps that loss of connection with a simple style of life is why the décor style known as Scandi Rustic style has developed an enthusiastic following with its controlled colour palette, plentiful use of timber features and natural materials, and the home’s connection to the natural world.

The kitchen in Waiau Homestead above Wainui Beach, Gisborne. The kitchen and pantry cabinetry is made from the home’s original exterior matai weatherboards. Photo / Tessa Chrisp

The planetary cost of new building materials, not to mention the dollar cost, encourages a growing interest in doing things differently with a reuse-where-possible mindset, whether new builds are modest or large. A pride in upcycled or found items suits the ethos of the times.

Rough says the rustic style is unique from home to home.

“It is not a “look” developed all at once on a decorator’s notepad. A rustic home does not get created from scratch in one go; it doesn’t arrive on a delivery truck by the houseload. It is a collection of loved objects, things that are meaningful, that have a story. It evolves through life with the person; it ages, it gathers richness with time.”

New Zealand Rustic: Creating a Home Inspired by Nature, Rough & Co Publishing, $59.99

– Kate Coughlan is a former editor of NZ House & Garden and NZ Life & Leisure.

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