Ambervilla
★★★★
Ambervilla is a very measured and constructed one acre space that excites you at each turn, each view. The owner has assembled an international sculpture collection, carefully located in a series of garden rooms.
It isn't quite clandestine, but it is private and delineated by a palpable lattice of straight lines and strong planes. The villa is bordered by low formal planting and strong hedging that separates building and garden scape. However, what strikes you immediately are the beyond-life-size sentinel sculptures on either side of the verandah steps offering unrelenting surveillance.
Just inside the imposing steel entry gates runs a rillbound by a series of small spaces defined by pleached Titoki. The pivotal moment in the rill isa crouched figure of Max Pattes Reflection, a squatted form staring into the water with a mixture of cogitation and seeming anguish.
Your eye is then drawn back to the line that runs from the house to the depth of the garden for here is another brawny statement. Huge steel henges, exaggerating play on pergola frames, mark the pathway.
You will not have missed that directly facing the house is a large Carten steel instillation. Its at once monolithic and delicate. It takes the form of a four-square room, playing loosely on the notion of a summer house. Called Reality TV by Australian artist Anne Levich, the work challenges you to consider whether you are looking from outside in, or inside out.
The planting palate is quiet. Greens and whites predominate. In Spring the Cornus (wedding cake trees) make the garden layering all the more evident. For all the strength of structure and steel, there is a contradictory softness.
Facilities and Amenities
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The garden is open by appointment.
The garden is open during Pukaha Garden Festival and for other events.
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$20 per person
Open from 1 April 2025 by appointment and during special events. Tour groups and coaches welcome.
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