- Land and buildings leased to Little River’s SiloStay accommodation complex listed for sale.
- The nine-unit Banks Peninsula property offers guests the chance to spend the night in converted grain silos.
- Each two-storey unit combines industrial exteriors, custom interiors, and skylights.
He just sold two Tīrau icons, and now he’s looking to offload another unusual Kiwi classic: a boutique accommodation complex built inside working grain silos.
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Bayleys listing agent Murray Madgwick said his client is an older gentleman who’s based overseas and is selling off some of his holdings in New Zealand. “He has a number of properties and is having a reshuffle.”
Madgwick’s vendor picked up 4243 Christchurch Akaroa Road, in Little River, Banks Peninsula, in early 2020 for just over $1m, as Covid sent the country into lockdown.
The property is home to SiloStay, a boutique accommodation that offers nine self-contained units on a 1931sqm site in the Banks Peninsula. Rooms can cost up to $500 a night.
Up for grabs are the land and buildings only, with the operators of SiloStay on a 30-year lease that ends in 2050.
The buildings and the business were the brainchild of Stuart Wright-Stow, who had the novel idea of turning grain silos into boutique accommodation. Photo / Supplied
Guests at SiloStay spend the night inside converted grain silos, complete with kitchens, living areas and ensuite bedrooms. Photo / Supplied
Madgwick’s vendor got $1.53 million for Tirau’s corrugated-iron sheep and ram.
He bought the properties 10 years ago for $1m and sold them at a heated auction for $140,000 above RV.
Madgwick said he had already received several calls about the silos since bringing them to market at the end of last week.
Of those calls, one was from someone experienced in visitor accommodation. However, in this case, the site is already leased. “It’s a passive investment,” Madgwick said.
The idea for SiloStay began not with the current owner, but with Canterbury businessman Stuart Wright-Stow, who saw something most people didn’t when he looked at the grain silos scattered around the region.
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The Wright-Stow whānau owned the land at 4243 Christchurch Akaroa Road and is well known in Little River for owning and operating the art gallery next door to SiloStay.
Stuart’s son Pippin, who was the lead designer on the project, told OneRoof his father was always fascinated with grain silo colonies that were common around Canterbury.
“He would muse on the thought of what else could be done with these agricultural structures,” Pippin said. “They’re throughout Canterbury. Lots of them. He’d say: ‘That’d make a good accommodation complex. Chop in some doors and windows in there’.”
The solution would turn out to be far more technical than that. Silos are designed to pack in a large amount of weight, but not for human habitation.
Turning the new grain silos into luxury accommodation involved designing, testing and building bespoke ceilings, windows, suspended floors, insulation, heating, kitchens, bathrooms, and more.
Tīrau’s famous corrugated sheep and ram were sold recently for $1.5m. Photo / Supplied.
“He had a discussion with [REL Group], which built those particular silos, about how they could be altered and whether they could have a domestic use,” Pippin said.
“There was quite interesting engineering that went on to ensure that the exoskeleton could be retrofitted to provide accommodation. And then everything is retrofitted around that.”
Pippin’s firm, F3 Design, provided the product design and worked with the engineers to create bespoke interiors and fittings for the silos.
“We did design as well as prototyping for fixtures in there because all of the kitchen benches and showers are all custom-made,” he said. “We had a farming background originally, so a lot of [the design] was a pragmatic number-eight-wire design process. It was product design on a big scale.”
Each two-storey unit is 8.7m high. The peak has a glazed lid allowing a glimpse of the night sky while relaxing in bed. Upstairs houses a queen-size bed and ensuite, while downstairs has a kitchen and living area.
Pippin said the interiors were designed to be comfortable, but also to surprise guests. “The aim was to balance the industrial cool look on the outside with a lovely warm space on the interior. It’s quite a lovely play.”
The visitors’ book at SiloStay includes many interesting tales. One that really appealed to Pippin was that of a Southland farming couple. “Farmers who’d spent their whole life digging out grain from silos in Southland. His wife dragged him along [saying] ‘here’s a good weekend trip’, and he was like, ‘Oh my God, what have you done to me?’.” To his surprise, he absolutely loved the trip.
- 4243 Christchurch Akaroa Road, Little River, Banks Peninsula
