A striking family lodge with stunning views over Northland’s Taupo Bay has finally found its buyer – more than 20 months after it first hit the market.
While the price for the multi-million-dollar four-bedroom Taupo Bay Lodge cannot be revealed until it settles next month, New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent Conan Christmas, who brokered the deal, told OneRoof it was “well above” the CV of $4.79 million.
The Taupo Bay lodge had been owned for nearly 20 years by retail giant Kevyn Male, best-known for his Route 66 clothing store in Auckland. Male died in 2018 and the lodge was being sold by a trust on his three children’s behalf.
At one point during the marketing campaign, the 8.45-hectare property had an asking price of $4.5m.
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Christmas said that as far as he knew, it was just the second of two multi-million-dollar sales this year in the Far North, the other being the over-$6m paid by billionaire property developer Peter Cooper in June to buy back a luxury lodge being privately sold on his The Landing luxury estate on Rangihoua Road, Purerua Peninsula.
Christmas told OneRoof the lodge had attracted interest from the United States, Germany, and Switzerland, but the eventual buyer came from Auckland.
“The buyer was new to the market; he had not been looking before. He was looking for something coastal, with beach access and a significant native bush holding,” he said.
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Christmas said the deal for Taupo Bay came together quickly. “I’d arranged for him to be able to stay there. He fell in love with the views, the access to the beach and then the Taupo Bay community and the locals he met on the beach," he said.
“It’s a family home, to move from Auckland. It’s a very special property, the views are phenomenal. I’ve become quite attached to it myself. It all happened within a few weeks.”
Taupo Bay Lodge above Taupo Bay, Far North, has magnificent views towards Cavalli Island. Photo / Supplied
Christmas added that another deal over the summer had fallen through after the buyer could not settle on a number of other property sales, but that buyers at the $5m end of the market were still looking, albeit passively.
“Obviously some of those buyers are relatively unaffected by the [economic] challenges as the mid-market, but they’re not necessarily in a hurry. If they find what they’re looking for, they may be able to negotiate a relatively better deal than they would do in a big market. But there are only so many properties that are in that league, and they don’t come up that often,” he said.
When the lodge hit the market in late 2022, OneRoof spoke to one of Male’s daughters, Pascalle Drever, about the property.
“Its lodge-like quality and great outdoor areas means it’s a fantastic place to bring people together and entertain," she said.
The lodge was built in 1992 by a Californian who ran it as a tourist lodge. Photo / Supplied
You can hear the sea from the residence and look out to the white sands of Taupo Bay, to the Cavalli Islands and beyond. Photo / Supplied
“But there’s also something quite retreat-like about it as it’s incredibly private. It tends to slow people down as they find themselves just sitting there, happy to gaze at the amazing outlook.”
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom cedar property was built in 1992 by Californian owners, using a Californian architect, and had been run as a tourist lodge.
Male’s buying story had entered family legend.
The story goes that after searching for a special coastal property Male heard an agent in a café raving to some buyers about this one; he asked to see it and bought it.
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Northland
- Additional reporting Sandra Goodwin
