Many of us remember the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and we’ve featured it in AutoMuse as one of our Top 5 Car Films on Netflix. While the Ferrari was a star, a garage featured in it has become iconic.

The plot was Ferris mischievously convinces his friend Cameron to take Cameron’s dad’s Ferrari out for the day. Ferris’ girlfriend, Sloane, and Cameron come along for the ride. At the end of the day, Cameron, angry at how unloved he is by his dad, [“Who do you love?” “You love a car!”] with one giant kick sends his dad’s Ferrari smashing through the glass window of his garage into the forest below. “You killed the car,” says Ferris.

I think I watched this movie too many times as a kid. Way too many times! It left an impression on me in wanting a garage like Cameron’s dad.

In reality, the iconic home is called The Ben Rose House, and was built in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois in 1953. The glass box home has been an inspiration for many people around the world when it comes to designing houses.

And it inspired me too. Some time ago, I began conceptualising an idea of a ‘Ferris Bueller’ garage. Andrew Patterson, an acclaimed New Zealand architect who designed Chapman House at Parihoa, was given a brief to extend the existing three car garage.

The Brief: “Don’t disturb the lines of the existing house too much, but add a garage like that in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”.

“It’s like a garage that’s not a garage but at the same time is an ultimate garage,” I said to Andrew.

Much like that in the movie, I imagined the space as beautiful and minimalist, with floor to ceiling glass, plus views over Parihoa Farm and the Tasman Ocean.

Whilst it would be capable of holding seven cars when complete, my mission wasn’t to buy more cars. It would act as physical and spiritual “home” for AutoMuse where motoring friends could congregate or share in the occasional car launch after vehicles had been tested on nearby Muriwai roads.

I gave it the name “Jewel Box”, which harked from my other life in Singapore. The Jewel Box is an architecturally designed building, surrounded by lush greenery, with breath taking views and amazing sunsets and sits atop Mount Faber, the third tallest hill in Singapore.  

This idea was all good pre-Covid, when life was rosy, but once March 2020 hit, and during lockdown, I thought of cancelling the Jewel Box idea, thinking now is not the time … Fast forward to June and the first earth broke on the construction of the Jewel Box. Building is in its early stages and we expect a February 2021 completion date, all going well.

My greatest wish is that the Jewel Box becomes a special garage for New Zealand and within it exciting motoring related “things” can happen. I get very excited about the incoming era of electrification for the motoring industry and I imagine many new electric models, particularly, passing through this garage. I also think we can learn a lot from the past, in design, so I expect to see classics pass through the Jewel Box too.

It's certainly an unusual time to be building, as the world limps through uncertain times, but I’m enjoying giving energy to this project and possibilities it creates.

As Ferris says in the film, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”.

Follow the construction of the Jewel Box on the Automuse and Parihoa Instagrams.