- Dale and Maria Gray's Waiheke Island home, featured on Grand Designs New Zealand, is for sale by tender.
- The four-bedroom house includes a plunge pool, spa, vehicle turntable, and Hauraki Gulf views.
- Construction costs exceeded $5.5 million, leading the Grays to sell their Mount Eden house.
The stunning beach home that opened last year's Grand Designs New Zealand has hit the market for sale - almost two years after the vendors tried to offload it in an unfinished state.
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Dale and Maria Gray's four-bedroom architectural wonder at 41D Tiri View Road, in Palm Beach, on Waiheke Island, is billed by New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty listing agents Chris Jones and Francine Sweet as a “first-class ticket”.
Spreads over three floors, the house comes with a plunge pool and spa, a vehicle turntable and stacked garaging for two cars, sophisticated electronics controlled by a phone, and a clear view of the Hauraki Gulf.
OneRoof has asked Dale and Marie, and Sotheby's, for comment on the listing, but had not heard back at the time of publication.
Dale and Marie made a memorable appearance on Grand Designs New Zealand last year, detailing the ups and downs of their house-building adventure.
The dark wood-and-concrete house has few right angles and is cantilevered over a tricky piece of land to provide sea views and sun in most rooms. The architect included exposed diagrid ceilings.
Dale and Maria Gray with Grand Designs New Zealand host Tom Webster. Photo / Supplied
The house at 41D Tiri View Road has no right angles but does have a clear view of the Hauraki Gulf. Photo / Supplied
The diagrid ceilings are a standout feature. Photo / Supplied
The house almost didn't make it to the screen. OneRoof reported last year that they listed the then half-finished dream house as construction costs spiralled out of control.
The property hit the market for sale in February 2024 with an asking price of $8.75 million and renders showing what it could look like when finished. It is not known if the Grays are still aiming for a buyer with that level of budget, with the latest listing inviting tenders by a deadline of June 11.
The couple’s decision to sell wasn’t covered in their episode of Grand Designs New Zealand, but Dale explained to OneRoof last year why they did it and why they subsequently pulled the listing five months later.
“We’d had somebody approach us, saying they might be interested in buying it. We knew the [financial] commitment we had, and it was a hell of a lot more than what we desired,” he said.
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“Somebody said, ‘Look, you could just test the water’. So we did, but in all honesty, it was pretty half-hearted. If somebody had waltzed in and paid us that amount of money, we would have sold it, but we didn’t really want to sell.”
The Grays’ build took twice as long as they had expected and cost over $2m more than their initial budget, with the price of the build alone hitting $5.5m.
Last year, Dale and Maria half-joked that they were considering another project. “Next time, it’s a house with only right angles,” ventured Maria, referring to the standout feature of their Palm Beach home.
Dale said he’d still be keen on building another big house with a pool and a massive deck. “And I wouldn’t compromise on the finishes.”
The Grays’ construction project was huge. Covid inflation was a big factor in the cost blowout. Photo / Supplied
The Grand Designs home is a standout, but the consents and subdivision process was, according to the couple, “f***ing horrendous”. Photo / Supplied
Another build project is more than a pipe dream. The Grays already have the land: they bought a nearby 6165sqm block in 2021 for $3.2m, before they’d even started on their Grand Designs build.
They put the land on the market for sale in September 2024, but withdrew it from sale in January this year.
The couple’s televised build on Tiri View Road was part of the dream Dale had mapped out in incredible detail with a business coach he had engaged to take his recruitment business to the next level.
“I had to write my dream - it had to be tangible and tactile. I was standing on a deck on Waiheke with a pool and a view. [The coach] said, ‘Mate, this is insane. I want to help you achieve this.'”
One weekend later and the Grays were on a ferry to Waiheke with appointments booked with real estate agents. They quickly realised that none of the houses for sale matched their dream.
The Grays told OneRoof last year that they loved their home and, incredibly, that they would like to tackle something similar again. Photo / Supplied
“Renovating something quickly got too hard. We had built a couple of houses with architects before, so we weren’t complete virgins. There were a few sections, but they weren’t big enough. You need at least a couple of thousand square metres for a four-bedroom house,” Dale said.
Friends on the island brought them to Tiri View Road, at Palm Beach, where they proposed buying a 6000sqm block of land that was for sale. Together, the couples subdivided the land into three plots. The Grays and their friends took one plot each and shared the remaining third (the Grays sold their share to their friends).
Dale said the subdivision process was “f***ing horrendous” and involved two years of paperwork and planning. “You’ve got to get geotech, you’ve got to get gecko reports, traffic reports for the new driveway, all sorts of protection for the bush around you, a building plan to show the house concept,” he said.
For their build, the Grays approached the Waiheke Island builder they had seen on a previous episode of Grand Designs New Zealand. He advised them to find an architect who knew all of the island’s zoning, geography, and supply quirks – something most city architects had no idea about, Dale said.
“Things like what concrete products you can access out here, the environmental overlays, even when and where you can dump soil. If the local soil dump isn’t taking any more soil, it can cost tens of thousands of dollars to ship it back to Auckland.”
The Grays’ first attempt at a design with Dylan Rhynd was stunning, and boasted green roofs, but it cost around $5m - way more than their budget. Six months later, they landed on a design they hoped would cost around $3m.
Dale admitted that even if they had realised what the house would end up costing and the monumental challenges of the build, they would have still pushed on. “It’s made the house what it is, made the best of the view.”
Breaking ground was in March 2022. Dale reckoned Covid inflation contributed more than $1m to their eventual cost blowout. The biggest error, he said, was breaking the consents into four stages: foundation and earthworks; steel and engineering, and then two finishing stages. The cost of planting and restoring the native vegetation alone was $60,000.
“It got a bit sticky when the builders were catching up to the consent. You can’t do unconsented work, so they were ready to go, but the consents weren’t ready. There was one four-week period where we said, ‘We can’t build.' Things were getting priced with the quantity surveyor right up until January 2024.”
To deal with the mounting cost overruns, the couple sold their Mount Eden house last year and moved to a small bach they already owned in Rocky Bay.
The Grays said it helped that they stayed friends with their engineer, Dale Sheffield of Island Engineering, and their builder, Alex Toye.
“There are only three, maybe six, builders on the island who could do these big builds. Some people bring their builders across from Auckland, but that was never an option. If we’re going to live in Waiheke, we work with Waiheke people,” Dale said.
The Grays wouldn’t reveal the final bill for the project, but they were happy to say the project was worth it. “It’s so bloody incredible, man. I’ve never been so content. I was down on Palm Beach this morning with the dog. It gives me an incredible uplift in my well-being. It’s a very kind, generous place,” Dale said.
- 41D Tiri View Road, Palm Beach, Waiheke Island, is for sale, tender closing June 11
