Multi-millionaire wellness guru Matt Chapman has spent almost six years building a “shepherd’s hut” in Queenstown. The four-bedroom home, dubbed Synchronicity, sits on 24 hectares on Roys Peninsula, on the outskirts of Wanaka, and was designed by prestige architects Fearon Hay.
Chapman is proud of the house, which champions simplicity and harmony, but if you ask him, he misses his caravan.
“I had a tent, then I had a caravan and then eventually I built Synchronicity. I sort of begrudgingly built the house because I actually was very happy in the caravan,” he told OneRoof.
“I used to call it ‘Simplicity’ because when I was at that caravan, it honestly made me really think about my life and what do you really want.”
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He said the land’s isolation was its appeal, and from his modern-day hut he can look down on the peninsula from Treble Cone.
“When you look out, you see absolutely no humanity, no lights, no buildings. The rareness of a view, that really touched me because it can’t change in the future. This is just classic South Island, nowhere else in the world would you find that.”
But Chapman is looking to find a new custodian for his creation. At the end of last year, he put his West Auckland estate on the market for sale. He didn't find the right buyer but the process gave him clarity about his future and the future of his Wanaka home.
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“You don’t need so many things,” he said. “It’s part of the life process, simplifying, not having too many things. Keeping that balance between materialism and just being.”
At the time he found his Wanaka land, the then Singapore-based Australian (he is now a permanent resident of New Zealand) was travelling the globe running his international HR search business. But the remoteness of Queenstown-Lakes stopped him in his tracks.
“Since I started living in New Zealand in 2017 I wanted to go deeper into the country. And deep for me meant the mountains. I was very drawn to the serenity and peace of the South," he said.
“Dare I say, I really felt like coming to New Zealand. I wanted to go for the full experience.”
His search led to the magnificent Roys Peninsula. “I literally said to my friends, like when I spotted this land, I felt like I was on the edge of the world,” he said.
The 24ha estate on Roys Peninsula, Wanaka, has a four-bedroom Fearon Hay house, finished at the end of last year. Photo / Supplied
The isolated peninsula means no other house or lights can be seen. Photo / Supplied
The two-word brief to architects Fearon Hay might have been “shepherd’s hut” but the execution is more elevated than shabby. Chapman said he wanted to do the build of the 261sqm house properly with no expense spared, so the craftsmanship is exquisite. But, he said, it did not cost an “insane amount”.
The four-bedroom house in cedar, glass and concrete has a modular interior with two each of sitting rooms, master suites, and bathrooms (featuring Japanese-style onsen baths) joining the open-plan kitchen and sitting room. There is an outdoor kitchen, a rock-clad outdoor conversation and fire pit, as well as two bunk rooms and garaging. Naturally, there are wellness facilities: an ice bath, sauna, and hot tub, all connected to nature with the extensive planting and trails to the lake.
“It’s more about the beauty of the land and something humble on it. When people come to it, they say it is one of the most magical places they’ve ever seen, the energy of the house with the land,” Chapman said.
Although the house has been finished for eight months now, Chapman said he often takes friends back out to the caravan to remember how he first lived on the land.
Wellness guru Matt Chapman, a resident New Zealander, is selling his Wanaka estate to build his new wellness network. Photo / Supplied
Chapman also owns the adjoining 97ha farm on the peninsula where he is building another house. Photo / Supplied
“It really connected me with the land and it made me understand what I needed to do for the future,” he said, adding that part of that was to plant some 25,000 native plants, a move that he’s shared with neighbours who equally value restoring the former farmland, and becoming part of the Wanaka community.
Two years later he bought the adjoining 97ha land and is now in the middle of building another Fearon Hay house, called Telepathy, that will become his next South Island base when it is finished at the end of 2026.
Bayleys agent Sarah McBride, who is marketing the property with Sarena Glass, said that the privacy and rawness of the property was rare, helped by a community who were big advocates for the environment.
“Matt is a custodian of the land. I would feel that the new owner is going to be someone like that – leading a busy life elsewhere, taking the opportunity to find a place that they can come back and find balance,” she said.
“It’s an investment, a legacy, because there are only a few landholdings on that peninsula and they’re held on to.”
McBride said that the tender process was to determine how the market saw the price. A Wanaka record was set a year ago when an award-winning architect-designed house on Buchanan Rise, Treble Cone, sold for $16m.
Wellness facilities include Japanese-style onsen baths in each of the master suites. Photo / Supplied
The conversation pit was designed for friends to gather. Photo / Supplied
“It’s not an ostentatious house, it’s private and tranquil. It’s an absolute honour to represent this in the market,” she said.
Meantime, as he splits his time between North and South Islands, Chapman is focusing on building his new Parihoa-based wellness network, keeping the property until “the right kindred spirit comes”, he said.
“Building the wellbeing model again, which was my dream. Parihoa Network is a global wellbeing network, it will be a million people, almost a network of good energy and the farm sits at the base of that concept.
“New Zealand has been a complete reset to the new me.”
- West Wanaka Road, Roys Peninsula, Wanaka is for sale by way of tender, closing December 2
