- A restored two-bedroom beach house in Himatangi, Manawatu, is being marketed as a “hobbit house”.
- Owner spent years transforming the 1970s property, originally bought for $190,000, into a unique home.
- The house, seeking offers over $560,000, features retro decor and a challenging circular roof repair.
You’d be hard-pressed to find another listing like this one in the whole of New Zealand.
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The two-bedroom beach house at 104 Koputara Road, in Himatangi, Manawatu, is round, for a start, and is being marketed as a hobbit house – although flying saucer might be a more accurate description.
The décor makes it look like it’s straight out of the 1970s, and while that is when the house was built, One Agency listing agent Craig Dias told OneRoof that the house was a bit of a wreck and painted white when the vendor picked it up eight years ago for $190,000.
Dias said he had the listing back in 2018, and the property was riddled with black mould. “It was absolutely shocking, absolutely crying out for help.”
The house has a retro vibe, with period wallpaper and furnishings. Photo / Supplied
The curved walls and the circular windows and doors seem to echo the style found in J.R.R Tolkien's fantasy novel. Photo / Supplied
Dias had just started his real estate career, and the property was one of his first sales. “I looked at him [the buyer], and I thought, ‘There’s no way he’s going to repair this’.”
But when the owner recently asked Dias to come back to appraise the house for sale, Dias was stunned by the changes.
The owner, who is in his 70s, had spent several years restoring the property to its former glory, choosing a brown and orange colour scheme for the decor and furnishings. He even brought the original sunken bathtub back to life.
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“It’s a one-of-a-kind, and he’s done an amazing job. The change was phenomenal. He’s kept a lot of the retro look, and I think that’s got to do with his age as well.
“I think it suits the home quite well, but with that type of house, you could modernise the inside, and it would look amazing, it really would.”
Dias said his client had to realign some of the walls and had made a curved kitchen bench in two pieces, which he put in separately and then blended. It looks “absolutely amazing – you’d think it had been there forever”, Dias said.
One of the biggest challenges the vendor faced was repairing the circular roof. He spent a lot of time patching up all the cracks and holes. “There are no roofs like that in New Zealand, so he couldn’t go and get some tiles and some iron or anything like that.
Like a pie chart: the floorplan shows the unusual layout of the Himatangi home. Photo / Supplied
A hobbit hole at Hobbiton, the Matamata film set that featured in Sir Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. Photo / Supplied
The house, which is seeking offers over $560,000, was a real labour of love: “It’s him. Everything in that house is him. It’s got his spirit in there.”
The agent did not know the original history of the house, so it’s a bit of a mystery as to who built it and why, but Dias thinks it was probably someone with a similar vision as his vendor.
“I think they built it with an idea of being different, and then I think something happened in their life, and they had to walk away and leave it. It sat empty for about seven years.”
The property, which is huge inside, was hard to appraise because it is so different, he said.
“But we know there are people out there that love The Hobbit, so we’re hoping that someone will come along with a similar vision and appreciate it for what it is – an iconic home. Someone will love it.”
Dias said he dubbed it the Hobbit House, and although it’s not in Matamata, which is home to Hobbiton, the film set used by Sir Peter Jackson when making his Lord of the Rings movies, the property does have a hobbit connection; the owner’s son works for Weta Workshop, in Wellington, which did a lot of work on the films.
He said the vendor and his wife were selling so they could be closer to family, although the decision to leave was not an easy one. “Every screw, every nail, every splash of paint he’ll point out and tell you what he’s done.”
The property is only a five to 10-minute walk from Himatangi Beach with Dias describing Himatangi as a quiet, small-knit community and also a tourist hotspot. “You can drive along Himatangi Beach straight down to Foxton Beach or go up to Tangimoana. It’s a lovely beach, holiday spot where you can go and relax and a great fishing spot, too.”
- 104 Koputara Road, Himatangi, Manawatu, is seeking buyer enquiries over $560,000
