- The first home on Te Arai Links golf estate is for sale on the open market at $18m.
- Designed by Julian Guthrie, the 542sqm home features luxury amenities and ocean views.
- Jim Rohrstaff highlighted the property’s appeal, noting its prime location and exclusive services.
It’s the first home on the Te Arai Links golf estate to hit the open market. The five-bedroom home designed by noted architect Julian Guthrie has an $18 million price tag, instantly propelling it into the upper echelons of New Zealand’s luxury market.
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Jim Rohrstaff, who created Te Arai and the neighbouring Tara Iti with American private equity investor Ric Kayne, said the retreat was a standout property – which is saying something for an estate that’s teaming with multimillion-dollar properties (one of which is rumoured to be worth $100m).
Rohrstaff laughs that it would be a bit “tongue-in-cheek” to describe the property as a bach, and it’s easy to see why. Its scale and quality are hardly bach-like: it’s a 542sqm H-shaped home wrapped around courtyards on a 5332sqm site overlooking the golf course and ocean. It comes with a gym and a media room, top-of-the-line European kitchen appliances and smart electronics.
Rohrstaff told OneRoof: “Julian does a good job in coastal settings. He really nailed this one.
“You’re looking at golf plus crashing waves plus Te Arai Point. It is only 200 metres down to the sand. You can walk down with a surfboard.”
The Julian Guthrie-designed home includes European appliances in the kitchen. Photo / Supplied
The five-bedroom home sits on a 5332sqm site with ocean and golf course views. Photo / Supplied
The H-shaped property has courtyards on both sides and sits in landscaped dunes. Photo / Supplied
The two golf courses at Te Arai, opened in late 2022 and late 2023, were carved from former forestry land. Photo / Supplied
The house is being sold by an Auckland property professional, who had bought two sites on the estate, the second of which he is keeping for himself.
Neighbours in the estate 100km north of Auckland include Zuru Toys owner Nick Mowbray and his partner Jaimee Lupton, who have just broken ground on their new place at Te Arai Links, plus a coterie of wealthy CEOs, rich-listers and celebrities.
The estate also has a raft of prestige concierge services, including top-class restaurants, a new spa and the helicopter landing spot, plus links to golf courses ranked among the world’s top 100.
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While Rohrstaff hasn’t kept track of the number of properties that have won awards or featured in design magazines, the roster of big architecture names includes Guthrie, John Irving, Fearon Hay, Sumich Chaplin, Monk Mackenzie, the late Pip Cheshire and Andrew Patterson.
Rohrstaff said the decision to openly market the property was to build awareness.
“We thought that this was a good opportunity to actually show what is available, what is being built at Te Arai Links,” he said.
“You do not have to be a member of Tara Iti to buy this house. You can be a New Zealander who just wants a great coastal property, who loves golf or loves surf or just loves beautiful environments.”
Rohrstaff said the timing could not be better. Last week, the Government announced that overseas holders of the Active Investor Plus visa will, from March 6, be able to purchase a home in New Zealand worth over $5m.
The property was designed to sit in the dunescape, which has been re-planted with millions of native plants. Photo / Supplied
The property features fine finishes in timber, stone and plaster. Photo / Supplied
The grand entrance, designed by architect Julian Guthrie. Photo / Supplied
“That’s obviously a very good thing generally for New Zealand and for our marketplace up there and in Queenstown,” he said, adding that as the land was not considered sensitive, international buyers did not have to go through OIO approval.`
Te Arai Links is the sister development to the famous members-only course Tara Iti, which launched 11 years ago. The golf clubs keep the names of members and their guest hush-hush, but recent social media posts show Kiwi sports stars Beauden and Hannah Barrett, Irish popstar Ronan Keating and golfing star Rory McIlroy and world champion surfer Kelly Slater enjoying the restaurants and grounds.
Rohrstaff politely declined OneRoof’s request to reveal details of Tara Iti’s application process and what the annual membership fees was (three years ago, the joining fee was rumoured to be $400,000).
“There’s plenty of speculation, and we’re fine with that,” he said (the development’s website now gently announces “Tara Iti no longer accepts outside play” and points visitors to Te Arai Links).
Rohrstaff said the number of land plots available to new buyers in the estate was rapidly dwindling. “It will be one of the most tightly held pieces of real estate in the country. A lot of people look at it as a multi-generational asset, very akin to Pebble Beach or the Hamptons [in the US],” he said.
“We think the value of these over time goes in pretty much one direction, because it is a very insulated market at that price point. When [these] houses are resold in the future, they will smash records.”
