The grass is greener

W h e re th e g ra s s i s g re e ner

High-end properties next to top-of-the-range golf courses are highly prized, writes CATHERINE SMITH

For an increasing number of wealthy Kiwis, the perfect home has a luxury finish, a great view and 18 holes. Access to an exclusive golf club is an important factor for buyers who prefer their downtime to be spent on the fairway. Even for those who aren’t on the driving range seven days a week, the idea of buying a holiday or retirement home close to a top course, most of which are to be found in the most scenic corners of the country, is compelling. Indeed, some want to live right on the course.

The “golf home” trend kicked off in New Zealand in the 1990s when the Japanese Ishii family created Millbrook, on the edge of Queenstown. The five-star development offered Kiwis the chance to build or buy a home within resort grounds. Since opening, Millbrook has grown in size and reputation; it is home to more than 100 residents and properties can sell for more than $5 million.

Millbrook’s price and quality points were raised when Ric Kayne and Jim Rohrstaff developed Tara Iti golf course. The nearly 1400ha estate spans an 11km of coastline just south of Mangawhai, in Northland, and was modelled on California’s famous Pebble Beach 17-Mile Drive, which spans eight golf courses, seven of them PGA or championship courses.

Tara Iti was decades in the making before the course opened in 2015 and it will be joined in October this year by the first of two public courses on its southern boundary at Te Arai – be er known for the best surf on Auckland’s east coast, with a second course opening October 2023.

The flagship private club Tara Iti (ve ed members only, capped at 300, with a rumoured joining fee of around $400,000) debuted at No. 6 on Golf Digest’s ranking of the World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses, the highest-ever debut.

The club famously gives non-members a once-ina-lifetime chance to play. They must stay at least one night, at a cost of thousands of dollars, and cannot repeat the experience, unless they become a member.

Famous golfers who’ve played at Tara Iti include President Barack Obama, with former Prime Minister John Key, but Rohrstaff declines to name who else plays there (“we don’t get into the name-dropping thing”) nor who has bought the 125 exclusive sections for sale around the course that were sold from 2014.

Agents estimate rich-listers paid between $3m and $5m for lots ranging from 4000sqm to 4ha, some of which are already sporting houses, the rest still under construction. Again, he won’t name names, but Rohrstaff says the owners are mostly New Zealanders.

“We did have demand from overseas buyers, but demand stopped in October 2018 when they changed the overseas investment rules,” he says. ‘Millbrook set the benchmark’ The new Te Arai courses will have visitor accommodation and restaurants – around 20 buildings all together –designed by architect John Irving. Award-winning architect Pip Cheshire was responsible for the Tara Iti Clubhouse, which was carefully sited by course designer Tom Doak, who calls it “the nicest place to hang out in all of golf, whether you play golf or not”.

Rohrstaff laughs at the local legend that most golfers helicopter in for their game (only a small percentage do that, he says), adding that the surrounding Mangawhai community has benefited from the development.

“We employ a lot of people, and they all need homes,” he says. “This is such a good spot and what we’re doing is not high density, so there’s not a big impact. It’s a great environment.”

Greg Hunt is familiar with the trajectory of luxury golf resorts since he returned to New Zealand from America in 1993 to head design and development at Millbrook Resort, 20 minutes out of Queenstown, where the first property had started selling a few years earlier.

Hunt is now chief executive of a luxury resort and ninehole golf course being built at Gibbston Valley, another 15 minutes away. “Millbrook set the benchmark, it was one of the triggers for what happened here [Queenstown and Central Lakes] as a destination,” he says.

He quotes the rule of thumb for golfing destinations, that for critical mass an area needs at least five golf courses so that holidaymakers can play a new course every day.

In Queenstown, that means Millbrook, The Hills (jeweller Michael Hills’ course next to Millbrook), Jacks Point, the Kelvin Heights Queenstown course on a picturesque peninsula on the lake and Arrowtown, a li le rural gem that makes the New Zealand Top 100 courses list. But Hunt is clear that since its conception in 2007 (the GFC put plans on hold for a bit), Gibbston Valley golf will be just one component of a raft of lifestyle amenities that include a working winery, scenic vineyards, cycle trails, spa, farmers market and restaurants. The 400ha resort will have 100 visitor accommodation units, opening August 2023, and 150 gated residential units. The whole resort will not be completed until 2028.

“A nine-hole golf course is for people who enjoy the good things in life – good wine, good food, good living,” Hunt says. “We’re clear it’s not a golf course resort. Golf is just an amenity we have along with all sorts of other things. It’s a great golf course, but it’s not your whole day.”

That good life positioning has clearly resonated with buyers. Within a day of going on the market in December 2020, the development sold its first release of properties, helped by high-profile buyers like Key and cricket coach Brendon McCullum. Hunt says 90% of buyers were from Auckland, but he expects Australian interest to pick up now the borders are opening. Award-winning facilities New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty managing director Mark Harris says exclusive resorts like Tara Iti and Cape Kidnappers, in Hawke’s Bay, and Kauri Cliffs, in the Bay of Islands, have raised the bar.

“The thing with Queenstown is that golfers love to have access to more courses, and quite often you can play all winter, too,” he says. “A great day is 10 ski runs in the morning, and a great game of golf in the afternoon.”

And while a limited number of properties right on the golf course are available – Jack's Point The Reserve has 36 homes right on the fairways – home buyers are happy just to be within driving distance of the courses, Harris says.

Facilities help create the right experience: The Hills clubhouse has won architecture awards, and has a much talked about sculpture collection do ing the course; Millbrook has three world-class restaurants, but golfers also liked adding hiking the trails and riding bikes to their outdoorsy agenda.

This year Ray White agent Ross Hawkins brokered a $25.75m deal for a luxury four-bedroom home being built in a gated community on Forest Line Rise that shares amenities with the Waimarino Lodge in Bob’s Cove.

While the lodge property will have numerous luxury amenities, including an on-site gin distillery, Hawkins says buyers aren’t necessarily looking for houses on the course as long as there are good courses within driving distance.

The swift off-market sale of the 125 properties around the exclusive Tara Iti golf course shows there is room for more. Houses on nearby gated community Tern Point have sold for upwards of $3m.

“There is a definite value-add for homes that are part of a well-designed and thought-out golf course development. Looking over a stunning manicured fairway or green sets a property apart from just a home on a section,” Hawkins says, adding that buyers also look for other luxury amenities such as day spas, yoga rooms and gym facilities and on-site chefs. "These facilities set a community apart and give that point of difference from city-living environments.”

Members’ accommodation at Tara Iti, in Northland.

PHOTO / MICHAEL CRAIG

Lifting overall property values

Mark Macky, owner and manager of Bayleys franchise Macky Real Estate, which covers all of Northland and the northern-most fringes of Auckland, says Tara Iti has lifted overall property values in neighbouring towns and coastal villages.

“It certainly had a flow-on effect on Mangawhai and Omaha. Fifteen years ago, Mangawhai was a quiet backwater. Even five years ago, top properties were $1m-plus, now they’re $3m. That’s from both capital appreciation and because now more special properties are being built,” he says.

Macky says that post-Covid, many of his buyers have been specifically looking for properties close to the golf course, or at the boutique beaches of Langs Beach and Bream Bay. Even those who live in Omaha, further south, are keen to make the switch to Mangawhai.

Bayleys agent John Greenwood says Gulf Harbour golf course has had a similar impact on property values in the Whangaparoa Peninsula. The course changed the dynamic of the area when it launched in 1996 with around 100 homes next to it.

Today, these golf homes fetch upwards of $2m. “Originally they did set design rules for building, but that was too radical and failed. But the golf course has added value to the neighbourhood,” Greenwood says.

Just out of Taupo, in the central North Island, are two world-class golf courses: the Wairakei Golf + Sanctuary, owned by businessman Gary Lane, and Kinloch, owned by another rich lister, John Sax.

Wairakei was established by the Government-owned Tourist Hotel Corporation in 1970 and as New Zealand’s first internationally recognised golf course, was part of an early strategy to draw golf travellers (it kicked off again in 2013 when Tourism New Zealand began a concerted golf promotion programme).

“THE THING WITH QUEENSTOWN IS THAT GOLFERS LOVE TO HAVE ACCESS TO MORE COURSES, AND QUITE OFTEN YOU CAN PLAY ALL WINTER, TOO. A GREAT DAY IS 10 SKI RUNS IN THE MORNING, AND A GREAT GAME OF GOLF IN THE AFTERNOON.” - MARK HARRIS

Sax picked up Kinloch in 2011 and opened on the ground a luxury manor that boasts interiors by famed designed Virginia Fisher and a world-class restaurant run by Brazilian-born Michelin-star holder Marcello Tully. He has plans to expand the resort and told OneRoof that he was about to launch a development of 173 homes on the course.

New developments are also set to spring up next to the Bob Charles-designed Formosa Golf Course in east Auckland. The course has had a chequered history since it was built in the 1990s and hosted the New Zealand Open in 1996, but the 2020 relaunch by the Rydges hotel group of 50 refurbished villas and a restaurant helped restore its reputation.

Last month, developers announced they were cu ing the 18-hole course to a nine-hole and building up to 3000 apartments on the 255ha site as part of a 15-to-20-year plan for apartments, commercial, hospitality and retail.

Players enjoy a round at Millbrook, in Queen-

stown. PHOTO / BRETT PHIBBS.