Island retreat: Buy the lot for $30m
And there is at least one real estate agent who thinks it might be underpriced
A luxury estate on Waiheke Island is back on the market with an asking price of more than $30 million.
The estate, known as Pikau, at 306, 254 and 258B Cowes Bay Rd, on the south eastern corner of the island, is owned by Sean and Beverley Connelly.
They last tried to sell their slice of Waiheke 16 years ago, but didn't get the $28m they were looking for.
The property is now being marketed as three separate lots by NZ Sotheby’s International Realty agents Pene Milne and Lisa Hopewell.
Milne said client confidentiality prevented her from commenting on the sale, but Chris Jones, NZ Sotheby’s International Realty managing director for Auckland and Waiheke, said there was a shortage of high-end properties on the island.
“The only thing holding it back is the lack of stock,” he said.
“We’ve got people constantly looking with $10m-plus for cliff-top or waterfront; privacy is important for them and discretion is important,” adding that there is already interest from qualified buyers after the “very creative” way the vendors structured the property into three parcels.
The primary property at 306 Cowes Bay, asking $18m, includes the luxurious seven-bedroom mansion on 8.36 hectares, with a jetty and alltide boat launch ramp, flood-lit tennis court, a conservatory and an indoor heated pool. The house, designed nearly 30 years ago by the Connellys, has several living rooms, a library, a catering kitchen with an Aga, plus multiple bathrooms, garaging, vegetable and fruit gardens. Part of the site is covenanted native forest.
Listing photos do not show the interior of the columned plantationstyle mansion or the six or so guest houses and out buildings.
The second site, at 254 Cowes Bay Road, asking $7.5m, is 4.38ha of pasture with 400m of beachfront on the southern end of the bay that also has use of the jetty and all-tide boat ramp.
The third property, asking $5m, is another waterfront plot of 3418sqm with a bungalow in original condition that could be renovated or the timbers recycled into a new home, the agents said.
Milne and Hopewell’s marketing describe the property as “simply world-class coastal land”.
“This property is part of a limited and rare best in class bespoke private coastal development. The opportunity exists to commence the development of your own coastal retreat or to land-bank now and construct your island home when you are ready.”
The sale of the main property for $18m will not dislodge last year’s price of $23.5m paid for the 34ha Gordons Road estate owned by the late US-based billionaire Julian Robertson’s luxury lodge business.
The Robertson family, owners of the acclaimed Kauri Cliffs, The Farm at Cape Kidnappers
and Matakauri Lodge, had bought the property at Kauaroa Bay, on the southern coast of the island, in 2018 for $19.5m and had resource consents underway to add stand-alone visitor villas and an owner’s lodge to the existing main homestead. They cited the difficult tourism market post-Covid as the reason for pulling out of their Waiheke Island project.
Waiheke is no stranger to richlister sales.
Last year’s highest-profile sale was the $72m paid by Mainfreight chairman Bruce Plested for a 300ha trophy property above Carey Bay that runs between Woodlands Bay and Man O’War Bay Road.
One agent thinks the $30m price for the Cowes Bay estate is on the light side.
Graham Wall, of Wall Real Estate, who sold a smaller 6.1ha estate with a five-bedroom house on the same road just after lockdown for $6.5m and another 5.4ha estate on Orapiu Road, also in Cowes Bay, for $7.35m in November last year, said that the “utterly gorgeous” corner of Waiheke was worth more.
“It’s worth $100m, it’s priceless. When you look at what Bruce Plested got for $72m, this is the one of the most beautiful pieces of land on earth. It’s the only place with a big plot of land that’s so utterly tranquil.”