The Waiheke Island estate owned by the late Sir Rob Fenwick has sold for $4.8 million to like-minded buyers.
Sir Rob's widow, Jennie Fenwick, who prefers not to use her Lady title, told OneRoof earlier that plans to sell part of the couple’s holding at Te Matuku Peninsula after Sir Rob’s death in 2020 were stymied by Covid lockdowns and life.
But when she put the property back on the market in January, she felt the time was right to pass on guardianship, or kaitiakitanga, of the 167-hectare estate.
New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent Pene Milne, who marketed the 167ha property by tender which closed in March, said that the search had been for a buyer who wanted to become the next generation of caretaker. While she could not reveal details of the buyers, she said they came from the wider Auckland area.
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“As you can imagine for such an iconic property there was significant interest from offshore Kiwis,” Fenwick said.
“However for us it was important to pass the batons to a buyer who would be physically on the land as guardians building on the legacy.
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“They are also lovely neighbours and I know as we work together on the mahi of kiwi translocation, our combined skills and energy will supercharge the process,” she said.
Milne added that this was the “perfect buyer”.
“They have an absolute passion for conservation, it’s fantastic,” she said.
Jennie Fenwick at her home on Waiheke Island. She is selling off part of Te Makutu Peninsula but continues to live there. Photo / Michael Craig
The estate on Orapiu Road, on Waiheke Island, sold to buyers who are keen to continue the conservation work the Fenwicks began. Photo / Supplied
Milne said the interested buyers, including expat New Zealanders based in Europe and the United States, all had conservation and sustainability at their heart.
“They got it about the legacy that was set up, the history of what the Fenwicks had done. They understood the story, and what it would mean to carry this on,” she said.
The block had approximately 15ha block of pastoral land suitable for a myriad of uses, but the appeal of the property was the approximately 152ha of restored bush.
Milne said that the property, which has a CV of $4.2m, had a building platform and a bore had been drilled for water.
Fenwick said that with the help of a gardener, she has kept up with the pest eradication programme, alongside her neighbours and the charitable trust Te Korowai o Waiheke, and was delighted that the new owners were picking up the application in the works with Save the Kiwi, Ngāti Paoa and Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki to re-establish kiwi on the land.
In an interview with OneRoof in August 2021, just as she was getting ready to sell before Auckland went into another lockdown over an outbreak of Covid, Fenwick said that Sir Rob had always talked about selling part of their holding at Te Matuku Peninsula.
Sir Rob and Jennie Fenwick on Waiheke. Photo / Supplied
Sir Rob, a celebrated environmentalist and businessman, died in March 2020 aged 68 after a five-year fight against cancer.
Their land on Waiheke meant everything to him, she said, recalling the message he left on an answerphone 37 years ago when he told her he had bought something special.
She was about three weeks away from giving birth, and Sir Rob had attended a mortgagee sale for a farm on the island. “Sorry darling, I’ve bought a farm,” he said in the message.
Fenwick told OneRoof in August 2021: “Having this love affair for the land really was where the seeds for his huge and ambitious schemes came from – it started on this land and then we tried to get the whole of New Zealand to join in.”
Prior to buying the land, a farm in three titles, she and Sir Rob owned a small piece of land next door where they used to camp, but with no road access they got there by boat from Maraetai bringing children and dogs to work on the land.
Sir Rob with a kiwi that was named after him. Save the Kiwi, Ngāti Paoa and Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki have plans to to re-establish kiwi on the Waiheke Island estate. Photo / Supplied
Sir Rob, the founder of the Living Earth composting business and the driving force behind the Predator Free 2050 movement, set about putting everything right as fast as he could, Fenwick said in 2021, but getting the stock out of the forest took a lot longer than planned – “the last pigs are just coming out now”.
Now, the land has beautiful native forest, hardly any rats and many bird species which have not been seen there for probably 80 years.
“We’ve got weka, pateke, banded rails, kaka, kakariki, and we have spotted and we’ve heard and seen the New Zealand falcon, and we’ve got all the wading birds now in such a big, beautiful estuary.”
“Rob always said to anyone he could speak to, that when you’re making decisions, you have to put the land’s needs ahead of your own,” Fenwick had earlier told OneRoof.
“It’s a beautiful story, it keeps giving,” added Milne.
“What this means for Waiheke, bringing kiwi back, it’s a very special thing and all credit to the Fenwicks.”
- Click here to find more properties for sale on Waiheke Island
