The Christchurch architect who rebuilt his Don Coy designed home

Joseph Johnson / Staff

Bridget and Duval O’Neal at their Mount Pleasant home.

Duval O’Neill, director of Herriot Melhuish O’Neill Architects, lives in Christchurch, with his wife Bridget on Mount Pleasant. The couple’s home, designed by the late Don Coy, has been written off in the earthquake. They chose to rebuild it, which took two years. They moved to the new house in 2016.

Duval: My wife and I moved from Wellington in 2005. After living on the hills there, we gravitated towards the hills here. We found this little house through some friends. It was a kind of “worst house on best street” scenario. After doing a little digging, an architect in the building we shared said they thought the house might have designed it [Christchurch architect] Don Coy to his parents.

Supplied

The original Duval and Bridget house.

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We manage to get it and from there a really great friendship begins with him and his wife Jocelyn. We went to their Redcliffs home and he showed me through all the photos that he had. He gave me those to take, and a whole lot of colorful slides. I managed to get all that cool info in addition to his current graphics.

We had all these aspirations of home alteration and renovation through a number of iterations. The earthquake has shook things up for us, as the decision is largely out of our hands. The insurance company said fixing it is not economic.

Joseph Johnson / Staff

Duval purchased one of these vases for Bridget’s birthday from the Pre-Earthquake Global Store in Christchurch.

He lost his life in the earthquake. It was really sad. We were kind of determined to bring this home back, largely because we knew the care and love he put in it. There were a lot of memories he made that we made there.

His bones to us were really good. And their website was really good. So we thought, well, let’s tell the insurance company that we want to rebuild. I think they almost fell from their seats. They’d rather write us a check I think.

Joseph Johnson / Staff

Clay pots were once owned by Duval’s grandmother.

In many ways, while the epicenter was literally on top of a hill from us, we built a foundation on the rocks. You get a lot of vibration through the rock but you don’t dive into the ground like you do in an apartment.

Making an existing home as a template for development is almost like a makeover project. Provided an immediate enrollment. It is around these limitations that there are really interesting opportunities.

Joseph Johnson / Staff

A talking point in the O’Neill House: Photographs of the building before and after.

Bridget has a really good eye for interiors. She is able to look at all the furnishings and all the little bits and pieces that we have and she really turned it home, while I came from that modernist aesthetic.

We stuck to the original footprint, but the occupied areas of the house were largely upstairs. We have redeveloped the basement in a way that we can preserve car storage but also create a better sense of calling home, through the house, and out into the garden.

Joseph Johnson / Staff

Peace Cranes Duval and Bridget took a ski trip to Japan.

The old house had a small bridge over the waterway, but that was around the back of the house. We’ve put down a brand new staircase and bridge connecting to the center of the park.

When we got home, he talked about the roughly designed way he wanted people to experience it, so the views are open to you, not all as one, but as a series of small shots. We hope we have built on this idea.

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