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The Harbour Hospice Homes & Gardens Tour will be held at Point Wells on November 9 with a new line-up of hand-picked properties.
Among them will be the home and garden of Jodie Hanna and partner Greg Dewe.
Although they are normally private people, Jodie says they’re making an exception for hospice because they believe in its value to the community.
“Hospice cared for my grandmother with such compassion,” she says. “Even now, years later, I’m moved to tears remembering how they preserved her dignity – it meant the world to our family.”
Jodie and Greg bought their property about 10 years ago, and say that what they love most about it is that “we’re right in the middle of everything, yet it feels like our own private oasis”.
When they moved in, the front yard was a large, gravelled area. Perfect for parking multiple cars, but less appealing to the eye. The backyard housed a gentle slope that ran the entire length of one side of the lawn, and a children’s playhouse.
They felt their outdoor spaces could work better for them, so invested in the expertise of a garden designer and landscaper.
Today, their front yard is a well-organised, calm green space where vegetables are grown most of the year. Similarly, their back yard is much more user-friendly. The slope has been replaced with a 25m-lap pool and gardens planted in natives and grasses.
They’ve made some adjustments to the interior – renovating the kitchen and master bedroom and upgrading the bathrooms and laundry using macrocarpa timber milled from the family farm in Maungaturoto where Jodie grew up.
“The bones of this house are really simple, and the concrete floors mean it really doesn’t matter if you’re coming in from the beach with wet, sandy feet or coming in from kicking a ball around, covered in mud. It really is a home for living in.”
A recharge café will operate at the Point Wells Community Hall during the tour, where there will be freshly baked morning and afternoon teas, coffee and food carts, barbecued food from the Warkworth Butchery, raffles, plant stalls, art and craft, and silent auctions.
The tour is supported by principal partners Bayleys in the North and Jodi Sterling – Bayleys Matakana Coast.
Info: https://harbourhospice.org.nz/event/homes-and-gardens-tour/
