An American church minister’s multi-million-dollar compound in the Western Bay of Plenty is eyeing overseas buyers who wish to “live in luxury and be prepared for any crisis”.
The three-bedroom luxury home for sale at 526 Lund Road sits on 29 hectares overlooking the Pacific Ocean and comes with its own safety bunker.
It is being sold by Reverend Alan Logan Craft, an American farmer and Episcopalian minister, who received Overseas Investment Office permission to buy the property in 2015.
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Listing agent Jeremy Pryor, from Tremains, told OneRoof the property was set up to go completely off the grid. “There are not many places in the States where you have your own water and potential for complete self-sufficiency,” Pryor said.
The home, which has a 2022 RV of just over $3 million but is looking for more, comes with a large storage area for supplies, enabling off-grid living for a lengthy period of time, and boasts solid steel gates.
“Logan bought the home, built the extensions, and finished everything off very nicely to get code compliance. He said to me that if he had seen the property as it is now, he would have bought it in a heartbeat,” he said.
The property boasts stunning views of the Pacific Ocean. Photo / Supplied
Pryor said Logan was moving to Queenstown to be closer to his daughter.
The agent noted that while they were a rarity in the Bay of Plenty, bunkers and panic rooms were common features in Queenstown’s high-end market. “There’s a number of large, very wealthy properties that have been built [there] with bunkers or basement areas where you can live for years.”
The property, which is split over two titles, is being marketed with international buyers in mind.
“Someone could live in the current house, and build something very flash on that other title. In time they can then shuffle the titles around, keep the farm, or just keep their flash house on a few acres and then sell the farm off. But at least it gives them options when it comes to what they want to do,” Pryor said.
Another “bunker” home on the market for sale is in Elgin, Gisborne, but with lower price expectations.
The three-bedroom property at 621 Childers Road has an asking price of $897,000 and is billed as a family paradise that comes with an underground World World II bunker and subterranean tunnels.
Listing agent Dean MacFarlane, from Ray White, said the bunker was a Royal New Zealand Air Force command centre during the war.
A three-bedroom home for sale at 621 Childers Road, in Elgin, Gisborne. It sits on a 7841sqm section and has an asking price of $897,000. Photo / Supplied
The property boasts a secret underground bunker. Photo / Supplied
MacFarlane said the property’s hidden secrets had made open homes very popular with the locals.
“The house itself is a pretty substantial three-bedroom, one-bathroom, 1950s home,” he said.
“The vendors have owned it for the last three-and-a-half decades. It was the family gathering place because it’s so large - at 7841sqm - and has plenty of room for the kids to run around. There’s plenty to do there.”
The bunker itself is a concrete structure built into a mound with only a door visible from the outside world. It could be used as a workshop or craft room, said MacFarlane. Two secret tunnels lead off the main bunker to hidden exits elsewhere on the property.
“One of the tunnels comes off to the right and meanders. It does a couple of turns and pops up under the floor of a little shed. The other tunnel leads into an underground room where the children used to play squash. Further on it does a couple of twists and turns, goes up some stairs and comes into the garage,” he said.
The RNZAF had a presence in Gisborne during World War II at Darton Field aerodrome, which is now Gisborne Airport.
“We had a couple come through a couple of weeks ago and one of their dad’s had been one of the people that sat in that room listening for submarines in that very bunker,” MacFarlane said. “Most people that have come along have come out of curiosity to look at the bunker,” he added.
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