The ultimate lifestyle opportunity
T
HIS supremely luxurious home for sale in Paraparaumu offers the ultimate lifestyle in a whitebaiter’s paradise.
The breathtaking property, at 2 Otaihanga Rd, combines a five-bedroom lodgestyle house and a three-bedroom bach on two titles adjoining the Waikanae Estuary Scientific Reserve.
Built six years ago, the 595-square Ben Gilpindesigned home sits amid 1.4691 hectares of pasture and landscaped grounds, complete with swimming pool, while the approximately 90sqm bach is on 2580sqm of largely flat lawn.
It was the bach that drew Aaron and Jenny Craig to the property but once they saw the scale of the site they wanted to capitalise on the space without spoiling the landscape.
Their relatively low profile, two-storey home was inspired by Colorado ranch-style architecture and is as highly specified as it is spectacular.
Built six years ago of cedar and about 250 tonnes of West Coast schist, it has a Gerard roof, extensive cedar panelling and joinery, solid oak floorboards, a RibRaft foundation for seismic resilience, and a state-of-the-art audio-video-data cabling system.
It includes three bathrooms, an outdoor kitchen, a poolside loggia with bifolding doors on two sides, four fireplaces (two of which are gas), more than 20 radiator heaters, and three-car garaging.
“It took us about 18 months to build – the whole house is top-of-the-line,” says Aaron, who’s sold his construction business to move north and focus on his new medicinal marijuana company, Cannasouth.
Peerless indoor-outdoor living is one of the house’s many features, with the vast open-plan living/dining room and kitchen opening to the loggia, decking and courtyard.
This area has a spectacular chapel ceiling with exposed rafters and wraparound floor-to-ceiling glazing.
The stunning kitchen includes a black Falcon double-oven and refrigerator-freezer that were imported from England, a double butler’s sink, and an integrated dishwasher and rangehood. There’s also a butler’s sink in the large laundry, which offers extraordinary storage, while the internal-access garage and a deluxe internal garden shed are lined with ply.
Also on the ground floor are a formal lounge, a media room or home gym, three of the bedrooms (two with a semi-ensuite), and an opulent bathroom with a stand-alone stainless steel bath. A fourth bedroom is off the stairs ascending to the magnificent sunroom, which faces west over pasture and opens to a wide, wraparound deck that it shares with the main bedroom suite. The latter includes a sumptuous dressing room and black-and-white ensuite, has its own gas fireplace and overlooks the reserve.
“I believe there is nothing approaching this build quality in the lower North Island,” Mike Voyle, of Voyle & Co Realty, says.
“No expense was spared in its design and construction. It has everything, from wellproportioned rooms and all this land to a swimming pool, complete privacy and even its own whitebaiting spot.“