The year’s best bathroom is part of an extensive renovation that reflects on the family’s long history with this site on a quiet, leafy street in Auckland’s Herne Bay; a very personal sanctuary where memory and materiality converge.
From the project’s inception, interior designer Shelley Ferguson worked alongside the architects to refine the spatial planning, reimagining the home where the client had grown up — a house that had long belonged to her mother and was deeply woven into the family’s history.
Tucked among the established trees of one of Auckland’s oldest suburbs, the modest cedar home had witnessed decades of family life. The homes around it had evolved while this had stood still; a marker of memories and a cherished past that Shelley’s clients were determined to honour.
While the renovation was extensive — the house essentially being stripped back to its bones and raised on piles — the intention was never to erase its history, but to speak gently to it.
“It was about future-proofing the home while being respectful of my client’s mother’s memory,” Shelley explains.
That philosophy shaped every room, but nowhere more profoundly than the bathrooms. Rather than functional spaces, they were treated as moments of pause; sanctuaries designed to evoke emotional connection.
“We wanted to create these little moments throughout the house that inspire you to feel connected — either to yourself or to others,” says Shelley.
The catalyst for the design arrived unexpectedly when Shelley’s client showed her a rose quartz crystal, a symbol of warmth, love, and human connection.
“It was quite an abstract starting point; the materiality that immediately came to mind was natural stone.”
That instinct quickly led Shelley to a remarkable slab of Yangtze Peach marble from SCE Stone. Flowing between dusty rose, muted peach, and soft greys, it possesses an understated warmth that feels both sophisticated and entirely organic.
“I had pink in my mind, but I wanted it to be a grown-up pink,” Shelley says.
Rather than treat the room as a cubic form within which utility is placed, she introduced a floating wall, clad entirely in the Yangtze marble, which conceals the toilet and shower. Its softly textured leathered surface invites touch. The slab was carefully book-matched, a process that revealed a beautiful series of hearts at the connection point.
“You can’t see them, as they are behind the mirror, but knowing that they are there felt meaningful. It captured exactly what the brief was about,” the designer remarks.
Surrounding the marble is a restrained palette designed to amplify rather than compete with it. Limestone tiles with softly irregular edges lend the room an effortless, lived-in quality, while crown cut timber cabinetry is lacquered in a dusky blush tone, colour-matched to the stone. Brushed brass fittings and sculptural globe lights with marble detailing are, as Shelley puts it, the jewellery.
Overhead, a large skylight allows for a shaft of sunlight to cascade onto the stone throughout the day.
“Bathrooms often rely on artificial lighting, but here the natural light feels like it’s from the heavens. Combined with the pendant lighting and wall sconces, it creates a room that feels more like a living space than a bathroom.”
Elsewhere in the house, similar principles guided the design. The powder room embraces an entirely different personality with the same moments of connection.
“If the main bathroom is the little sister, the powder room is the big sister,” Shelly says of the richly immersive colour-drenched room. Here, the deep merlot tones of Rosso marble are colour-matched with the ceiling and cabinetry. References to the family’s Dutch heritage appear subtly in a contemporary interpretation of the traditional star motif, integrated into the cabinetry as a symbol of safety and prosperity.
“The clients wanted something entirely unexpected for this space, jewel-like. It was a lovely realm to be able to work in. Psychologically, when you walk in, because of the colour-drenching, you are immediately enveloped and cocooned in that room,” observes Shelley.
The kitchen continues the dialogue. Here, though, mossy quartzite, reminiscent of aerial views of rivers and wetlands, anchors dark crown cut cabinetry with the same star reference. Feminine softness sits naturally alongside a grounded, masculine robustness.
It is the bathrooms, though, that Shelley talks of here as one of the most rewarding spaces to design.
“They used to be utilitarian, but, in our busy world, they’re now an incredible opportunity to create something deeply personal.”
Rather than beginning with an image or a colour when approaching a bathroom design, Shelley encourages clients to ask a different question: How do I want to feel? Should the room become a place for stillness, a restorative retreat, or a jewel-box powder room that delights guests? These emotional ambitions are every bit as important as the materials themselves.
“I think the success of this project is that the bathrooms are moments of beauty that make you feel something; they’re little moments that evoke an emotional response.”
Judges’ citation
This bathroom was designed for a client moving into her recently deceased grandmother’s home. The brief asked that the space honour that beloved relative’s love of colour and nature.
The result is a resplendent altar of its own. A single piece of Yangtze Peach marble, chosen with the client, establishes the tonal foundation, with a lacquered vanity colour-matched to the stone, a custom marble basin, bevelled shaker detailing, brass and marble lighting, and copper heated towel rails layering warmth, craft, and refinement throughout.
Emotion and remembrance are succinctly displayed in material form; the veining of the chosen stone, in an apt coincidence, traces a faint but discernible heart shape across its surface. Full of colour, craft and care, the Heirloom House bathroom is a small gem: a deeply personal space treated with exactitude and soulful ingenuity.
Words Clare Chapman
Images Lilly Smith
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