Orewa’s Kensington Park is a carefully planned, architecturally designed community located just 500 metres from the white sands of Orewa Beach, on Auckland’s Hibiscus Coast.

Dotted around the 17-hectare property, and set amongst peaceful, landscaped gardens and lakes, are generously proportioned, comfortable townhouses and apartments. Since the first homes were built around 20 years ago, the Kensington Park concept has gradually expanded to create a popular and attractive community featuring luxurious houses, townhouses and apartments designed to suit a variety of households.

The Vision

Developer John Sax says Kensington Park is less a development and more a way of life.

The inspiration behind the masterplan and overall design for Kensington Park came from New Urbanist communities in the USA, such as Seaside in Florida. Features of this architectural approach that the Kensington Park masterplanners wanted to replicate include the human scale of the development, interconnected streets, and diverse housing options that welcome a mix of residents. Walking and biking paths, outdoor architecture and other community features are also part of the aesthetic, to encourage residents to walk, spend time outdoors and feel part of a vibrant and connected community.

“Our vision was to build a community. We’re developers, yes, but we’re not here to simply build buildings. Our role is to facilitate community and togetherness.”

John Sax

Architect Allan Shanahan, project architect for Kensington Park, says the development’s original masterplan has guided progress, ensuring existing and new homes blend together sympathetically, and continue to enhance the community feeling.

Architectural Integrity

Shanahan says the original concept with its coastal architectural style has been continued throughout the development, giving the whole of Kensington Park – both established and new areas – a  charming and strongly cohesive appearance that makes it feel like a community.

“This integrity and consistency of design between older and new homes is extremely important to us – and it creates a sense of calm unity across the development,” he says.

“While there are architectural similarities to communities such as Seaside in Florida, our development has a more New Zealand aesthetic, to give it a lighter, simpler and more beachy feel, while maintaining a very high building standard.

“Features such as white painted weatherboards, large windows, porthole-style windows, timber detailing in balustrades and pergolas, generous eaves and decks are hallmarks of these homes, partly to create the more local seaside flavour that we wanted, and to encourage connections between indoor and outdoor living,” he says.

“Expansive decks and landscaped terraces provide good indoor-outdoor flow for the townhouses and apartments, large windows make the most of views towards the beach, the sea beyond, and local bush reserves, and using pastel and primary rather than earthy colours for the exteriors emphasises the seaside aesthetic.” 

“Our masterplan ensures view lines are kept open even as new homes are built, often via pedestrian connections around the development and along pathways to the beach and Orewa’s town centre. The masterplan follows the east-west contours of the site, so most properties enjoy views of Orewa and surrounding countryside, and are oriented for maximum sun and light.”

Shanahan says as part of the pre-design process they send drones up to fly over any new sites. “We want to check views from various heights to make sure new homes will have the best possible views.

“Taller apartments and duplexes are on the fringes of the development, ensuring these residents have good views, without impacting the views of other residents.”

Stepping Inside

The architects and interior designers have carried the lighter, beachy aesthetic through into the interior décor also, and here also, the focus is on achieving top-quality detailing and finishes.

Shanahan says interior schemes are contemporary in style, with white and neutral tones for walls and floors to enable residents to inject their own colour choices and personalities through their furnishings and artworks.

“With a mix of housing types, this community is ideal for different household styles, with designs ranging from smaller, one-bedroom apartments to larger four-bedroom homes. 

“Many people moving into Kensington Park are looking at downsizing from large family homes, but they still want to plenty of luxury, space and comfort for themselves, and enough room for family and friends to stay or visit. They don’t want to lose the amenity they have had, or squeeze into a tiny apartment.

“To achieve this, our designs aim to create generous and comfortable spaces that are flexible. All the homes, from one- to four-bedroom designs, feature good-sized living areas for entertaining and large, high-spec kitchens. Over time, we have found the three-bedroom apartments and townhouses are very popular –  we have configured the third bedroom so it can be a guest bedroom, a home study or a second living area.”

Another popular and practical feature is the generous storage and spacious garages that offer extra opportunities for keeping family treasures.

Enjoying the Community Spirit

No community is complete without communal amenities, and Kensington Park is well served with beautiful, well-established, landscaped gardens, a lake, mature trees, a heated indoor swimming pool and gymnasium complex for residents, pétanque courts, a café, and even community vegetable gardens where residents can plant and care for their own vegetables and fruit trees. Barbecue areas and covered pergolas in the gardens are designed to encourage groups of family and friends to socialise together. 

For those wanting to explore the wider Orewa area, footpaths and cycleways meander through the development, leading to the town centre and surf beach,  and to the Alice Eaves Scenic Reserve on the northern side of Kensington Park.

For Sax, Kensington Park is much more than a housing development – it is a safe and neighbourly community that offers a vibrant and active lifestyle.

“From the outset, our master plan envisaged a fabulous community,” he says. “The by-line in the early days was ‘When neighbours become friends’ and we’ve absolutely achieved that because of the way we’ve designed the environment and the surroundings.

“We have had a long-term vision to develop a great place for people,” says Sax. “When you take a long-term view like that, you do things differently. You care about the legacy that the people who buy here inherit. I’m very proud of the Kensington Park community. At the end of the day, it’s people that make the place.”