- Joe Karam is selling his renovated Kawau Island home, spending $30,000 on barges for materials.
- The former All Black and his partner Lisa Lidgard moved there permanently in 2020 during Covid.
- The property features extensive renovations and is praised for its sun exposure and unique location.
Joe Karam reckons he spent around $30,000 on barges alone, getting renovation materials in and rubbish out of his then dilapidated but now immaculate Kawau Island home.
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The island, in the Hauraki Gulf, is accessible only by sea, and the barges delivered materials virtually to his front door.
The former All Black’s bach, which he shares with partner Lisa Lidgard, is for sale because Karam, at the age of 74 and still recovering from surgery on an ankle and a knee since moving permanently to the island five years ago, thinks it’s time to downsize.
Karam is well-known not just for being an All Black but for his support of David Bain, who was first convicted, then acquitted, of killing his family.
Karam told OneRoof he had been visiting Kawau for years, and that Lidgard had a family connection to the island.
Karam, right, with David Bain in 2009 after Bain's convictions were quashed. Karam had long fought for Bain's release. Photo / Getty Images
Karam and Lidgard moved to the island in 2020 and spent a lot of time and effort modernising their house at Pembles Bay. Photo / Supplied
When Covid hit in 2020, the couple happened to be at the tiny bach they owned on the island. “We were up here for Christmas holidays, and then lockdown came and we decided to stay here rather than going home.”
Home back then was a homestead in Marton, which OneRoof wrote about in October 2020 when the couple had made the decision to move to Kawau.
Karam said they had wanted something more suitable than their little bach as a full-time residence and fell for the house at Lot 76 Pembles Bay. It required a lot of work but it was in an incredible position and offered great views.
“It was in a very dilapidated state, this house. It’s very solid. It was properly built in the 1980s, but it had been let go for about 15 years. The cladding was deteriorated, and the painting and parts of the roof were bad. We’ve pretty much done the whole house up.”
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The big selling point, though, is the amount of sun the house gets. “Lots of houses hardly get any sun for the whole winter. It’s very sheltered from the prevailing winds, and it’s got a gorgeous, great big pohutukawa which I’m sitting here looking at right now out our front window right in front of the house.”
There is also a park out front for Karam’s Sealegs boat, which he uses to go to the mainland to do the shopping. “It’s just like having a car, really. Just to go and do the shopping, which I did yesterday, I literally walk, what 10 metres outside the front door, hop on the boat, drive into the water, drive out of the water on the other side, and I’m in Warkworth in half an hour and back in about an hour and a half.”
Not having shopping on the island is part of the appeal of living there. “It’s sort of old school, and because there are no shops, cafes and things here, you mix with people. Every weekend, something new happens, and people get a new boat, or they get a new toy, and we all go and have a look, so it’s a very lovely little life.”
The view from the house is spectacular. Photo / Supplied
Karam had to barge in materials during the renovation. Photo / Supplied
Renovating the house was a big job, made more expensive because of the costs involved with being on an island. And while Karam and Lidgard have a passion for renovating homes and did some of the work themselves, they’re not builders; they brought in the experts to do the rewiring, plumbing and building.
“We were lucky enough that one of our neighbours had an empty house, so they let our builders stay there. They’d come out for two weeks, and then go away for a couple of weeks, and then come back.”
The team gutted the main house and built new decks, as well as adding new joinery, appliances, flooring and lighting. The house footprint, though, has stayed the same. “We’ve just made much better use of what was here, and a lot of what was here was in a very dilapidated state and had to be replaced anyway.”
Karam said he and Lidgard were intending to stay on Kawau but wanted something easier to maintain as they got older.
Bayleys agent Robert Hood said the transformation of the property had been stunning. “The quality of the rebuild and development is just absolutely top-notch, and it’s just not the sort of thing you tend to get out on Kawau, which really sets it apart.”
Hood, who has sold a lot of property on the island, had noted a resurgence of birdlife there. “Someone even sent me a photograph of two kiwis on their back deck.”
- Lot 76 Pembles Bay, Kawau Island, Hauraki Gulf Islands, has a set sale date of April 9
