A secluded luxury lodge in the South Island’s alpine and river country is on the market for the first time in over 20 years, looking for well-heeled buyers with $30 million to $40m to spend.
The over 1200-hectare Manuka Point Station, about an hour out of Methven, sits on a V of land where the Rakaia and Mathias Rivers meet, and surrounds the Ragged Range with the main divide of the Southern Alps to the west.
Owners Don and Julie Patterson, who bought the land in 2002 and launched their luxury lodge and guided hunting business in 2009 are now selling their holding to the next big dreamer.
“It’s a promise kept,” Don Patterson told OneRoof.
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“I promised my wife I’d build a lodge. This whole project is to do with succession, from my generation to our sons’ generation and their children, generations in our 60s, our 40s and now five years old.
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“This was a rare opportunity to immerse ourselves,” he said. The Pattersons had moved from the Canterbury settlement of Southbridge (“same as Dan Carter, I’ve played lots of rugby with his father,” he said).
Forbes Global Properties agent Anthony Morsinkhof is marketing the property to the global magazine’s rich-lister database (among other things, Forbes keeps a real-time list of the world’s billionaires, based on stock prices) as well as luxury lodge operators.
The 1270ha Manuka Point Station has a luxury lodge that attracts an international clientele for hunting, fishing and hiking. Photo / Supplied
The property is bordered by the Rakaia and Mathias Rivers and sits beside the Ragged Ranges, with views of the great divide mountains. Photo / Supplied
“It’s like a secret address for Middle Eastern royalty, tech entrepreneurs and rock bands. Very famous people stay there, it’s one of the top properties in New Zealand,” he said, adding that big interest has come from top-end luxury lodges – the sorts of places Forbes’ people stay at – which do not have a New Zealand operation yet.
“They have been keeping a very careful watch here. Lodge operators can still buy in New Zealand. This is most definitely sensitive land, so even buyers from Singapore and Australia would have to go through Overseas Investment Office application. Depending if they have a track record in New Zealand, that may take nine months.”
The five-bedroom lodge features hunting trophies including tahr and chamois goats. Photo / Supplied
The gourmet kitchen where an in-house chef and staff are brought in to serve guests at the lodge. Photo / Supplied
Morsinkhof said he’s also had interest from wealthy families who would retain the lodge, its associated managers’ housing and a cute two-bedroom pioneer cottage for their personal use.
Pricing it was hard, but the agent said he expects Manuka Station, the land and businesses, would fetch “somewhere between $30m and $40m.
“To give you an idea, in New Zealand Huka Lodge sold for $41m. That’s a different proposition, of course. But this has got international and very high net-worth clientele and the spectacular location.”
Huka Lodge, on the outskirts of Taupo, was acquired by Australian luxury lodge operators Baillie Lodges in 2021.
The expected price is less than the over $40m paid earlier this year for a 15ha-plus lifestyle estate in Queenstown, the country’s most expensive house of all time. OneRoof understands the sale does not settle for some time, and that part of the land can potentially be subdivided. Last year, buyers paid over $30m for Halfway Bay Station, an 18,000-hectare property on the shores of Queenstown’s Lake Wakatipu.
Manuka Station’s location has the agent – and guests – raving.
“The drive into the station, in four-wheel drives through the rivers, is the most spectacular. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Morsinkhof said.
The big appeal of the pristine Manuka Point Station has been the family’s luxury tourism business, but Patterson said there was also the more traditional sheep farming, run by another son and his wife.
In keeping with their ethos, the family has also converted 340ha of the over 1200ha property into an emissions trading scheme, planting totora and trialling other trees.
“We’ve been accepted into the scheme for sequestering carbon in regenerating native bush, we’re working through to see what we get,” Patterson said.
The family also has a manuka honey business, built on the trees after which the property is named.
The lodge has been run as a family business since 2009, alongside a traditional sheep station, a manuka honey business and 340ha of native planting for a emissions trading scheme. Photo / Supplied
But the main drawcard for the station is the up-scale tourism business centred around guided hunting for red stag and fallow deer in the native manuka and beech forest, as well as the trophy Himalayan tahr and chamois in the alpine country. Patterson said visitors also come for the salmon and trout fishing, scenic flights (that side of the business is run by son Ben), heli-skiing and miles of hiking trails. The local golf course, Fable Terrace Downs, is known for its scenic alpine course and Patterson is keen to share his jet-boating hobby.
“I can’t say names but we’ve had international guests from royalty, dignitaries, you name a country we’ve had people from there,” Patterson said.
“We go to the international trade shows, and everybody has New Zealand on their bucket list – the open spaces, the landscape and the game, it’s a dream place to come.
“Not everyone hunts. Some sleep with their curtains and doors open so they can see the moon and the stars. In Europe the value they put on their natural environment, we don’t realise that here.”
Patterson said that while the nearest big town, Methven, is an hour away, visitors to the lodge are more likely to fly in and out to the key South Island tourist spots – Queenstown an hour away, Christchurch just 45 minutes and the stunning Fox and Franz Glaciers is reachable in 35 minutes by plane.
An in-house chef and seasonal staff are brought in to serve clients in the five-bedroom lodge, aptly decorated with trophies from Don’s hunting (they’re not for sale).
The lodge was designed by Robin White of Architectural Consultancy RW Design, with landscaping by Chris Goom, the “primo” team, Patterson said.
“We’re selling now for succession, 100%, for someone else to do the inter-generational thing.
“We’re starting to get a lot more momentum at the moment with the change of government. People are starting to get a little bit more excited.”
- Manuka Point Station is for sale by way of negotiation
