Dreamy homes to fix lockdown blues
Take a peek inside abodes with phone number price tags
If you spent a tough lockdown cramped in your lounge room running Zoom meetings while home-schooling the kids, then you are probably dying to escape to a new dream home.
Maybe one with a spare office so you can work in peace or a bigger backyard so you can sip an evening wine while the kids run free.
But why not let your dreams run a bit further?
It’s been a tough year, so here’s a chance to peek inside the homes in which the top 1 per cent live. Here’s some of New Zealand’s flashest homes on sale — homes in which you need never fear lockdown again.
19 Monteith Grove in Brooklyn, Wellington
Let’s start with a taste of the bombastic. If you’ve ever wanted to spend lockdown living like a James Bond villain, then you need a home with its own cable car and waterfall.
Monteith Grove ticks those boxes. It boasts incredible panoramic views of Wellington, seven bedrooms, room for five cars and sits on a huge 2278sq m block of land.
The “palatial” home also — according to its owners’ own admission — combines “unusual” styles.
That includes mixing a 1980s California and Florida-inspired exterior with 18th century Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian-styled bedrooms brimming with Persian rugs and oil paintings.
Then there is the indoor swimming pool and hot spa. It draws inspiration from Roman baths and Balinese spa culture — two styles well-known as complementary muses.
And of course there is the private cable car that can ferry you a few storeys from the bottom of the property to the top so you need never walk a stair again.
Offers above $3.95m for this one, please.
30 Wyuna Rise, Queenstown
If Monteith Grove is a tad too much for you, then Wyuna Rise is a statement in modern minimalism.
Made with earthy stone and wooden materials, this five-bedroom home boasts stunning lake and snowcapped mountain views, including towards the nearly 3000m-high Mt Earnslaw.
It is part of a small, exclusive residential hamlet carved out of Wyuna Station. If you take your kids here, stunning Lake Wakatipu will be their backyard.
Yet should you need to suddenly zip back to town, no problem, as your private helicopter can fetch you from the home’s helipad.
Hand over at least $19.5m.
285 Manawaora Rd, Russell
If the sunshine is more your thing, then Paradis Trouve near Russell in New Zealand’s Far North comes with nine bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, its own beach, a flood-lit tennis court and even world-class golf course.
And if that isn’t enough adventure, the resort-like home is also close to the Bay of Islands’ sailing, diving and fishing water wonderland.
It’s just an “easy” 45-minute helicopter flight from Auckland, and as the new owner you would get the choice of staying in one of four luxury homes positioned around a swimming pool and spa that are designed to house an extended family group.
It also comes with boat sheds, a floating pontoon wharf and even a cocktail bar and teppanyaki hot plate so you can cook up the catch of the day.
This one is a cool $19.75m.
46 Hobson St in Thorndon, Wellington
This Wellington home doesn’t come with the helipad or swimming pool of the other rich-lister properties, but it does make a beautiful urban retreat in the heart of Wellington.
Boasting a gorgeous vintage and urban design, the wooden home is designed around a series of pleasant entertaining areas.
They include an outdoor courtyard with comfy couches and dining table positioned around a powerful fire as well as the chance to take lunch in a greenhouse patio should the weather be a tad too cold.
The grand weatherboard house also comes with expanses of lawn in a part of the city that has otherwise already been given over to multistorey apartments and commercial offices.
Offers above $6.5m.
Westhaven Retreat, 336 Te Hapu Rd, Mangarakau
Westhaven Retreat is the most remote home on this list.
It sits on a stunning strip of coastal land at the South Island’s northwest tip, filled with forests, beaches and spectacular limestone cliffs.
Should you snap this one up, you will take over 330ha of west coast peninsula land close to Golden Bay that includes a working farm and allows you to go mountain biking, horse riding or to simply take in the view from a heated pool.
Owner Bruno Stompe said he and his wife fell in love with the property’s natural beauty.
Selling for $22.5 million.
60 Victoria Avenue, Remuera
If you need to live in Auckland, then 60 Victoria Ave might appeal given its spacious comfort and the fact it looks like a late-Medieval Tudor tower.
Sitting on a huge 2580sq m estate it comes with five bedrooms, a theatre room, swimming pool and secluded tennis court that looks like one of the back courts at Wimbledon.
There’s no mention of what price you’d need to pay, but Auckland Council has valued it at $16m.
Halfway Bay Station, Wa¯naka
The gorgeous Wyuna Rise we mentioned earlier might come with a spectacular architecturally-designed home that in spires you with its beauty.
But it is the incredible land that comes with Halfway Bay Station that will send your jaw dropping.
The $50m gorgeous lakefront land lies nestled among Queenstown’s snow-capped mountains and gives access to world-class fly-fishing and heli-skiing.
That’s right, you can go heli-skiing on your own mountain, located on your own property.
Halfway Bay Station comes on an 18,000ha pastoral lease that contains four separate mountain valleys and 7km of shore-front land on Lake Wakatipu.
Twenty-three kilometres of the Lochy River — a world-renowned flyfishery flowing with rainbow trout — also passes through the station.
Expect to pay about $50m.
Pakatoa Island, Hauraki Gulf Islands
Okay, so you got your own mountain with the last property — how about your own island?
Well, should you fork out $40m, you can get your hands on Pakatoa Island, located just a 15-minute helicopter ride from Auckland or a 75-minute ferry cruise.
The 24ha island comes with three white sandy beaches, crystal clear waters and even a wharf capable of mooring a ferry.
It also has a 62-unit resort building, squash court, gym, spa, pool and poolside bar and even a golf course.
Its selling agents did describe the existing buildings as “being held in a time warp”.