Their humble office was located just alongside the main highway and, when they decided to put a café on the same block of roadside land, they looked around for someone to help with the design. As is the case in Aotearoa, it was a one-step-removed affair: “Rich was just starting out and we knew the parents of a friend of his,” explains Deryn.
The RTA Studio design for Bosco Café was a built champion of the qualities of plantation-grown pine and a suitable companion vehicle for the Bartons' forestry enterprise, with a socially responsible heart.
The venue, a humble but welcoming spot, became legend with locals, and with skiers and travellers passing though the guts of the North Island. Its all-timber structure and monopitch roof provided much-appreciated respite in the café-light region.
When the Bartons needed a compact house on the same stretch of ground, they naturally commissioned RTA Studio for that, too. It’s a little removed from State Highway 1, but only a little mind you. “It’s simple and easy to live in but when the trucks go past, it shakes madly,” laughs Deryn. Not that she complains much. The house is cleverly designed so that the road is disguised, and the living room of the modern wooden cottage looks out over a park. “Rich and his team build good houses,” says Deryn. “Thankfully, they don’t fall to bits.”
In January 2017, John sadly passed away, leaving the family business to be managed by the couple’s eldest son Matthew. At 83 years young, Deryn has not slowed down. In fact, she’s jumped into a new development (the biggest yet): five two-bedroom, two-bathroom units far away from the rumble of heavy traffic. It’s a gated community where she plans to retire – or at least, her version of the word.
Although the project currently feels like “a 20-year programme”, Deryn has her fingers crossed it will be finished early in the new year. Working with the RTA Studio team has been fun and as far as the process goes, she’s philosophical. “Rich is pleasant – not pushy. He does what you want him to do. It all seems to turn out in the end.”