Advice for editors: do not send a property reporter to cover New Zealand’s international celebrity mecca.
Yesterday, while the OneRoof team was at Te Arai Links visiting the course and clubrooms and scouting the discreet winding streets lined with new houses for real estate stories, we missed the scoop of the year: a purported sighting of Justin Bieber playing golf at the exclusive sister course, Tara Iti, only a couple of kilometres along the dunes.
Weeks of planning had gone into OneRoof’s visit to talk real estate at the country’s most expensive enclave of houses, but it wasn’t until we got home last night that social media exploded with the pop star’s presence at the private members-only club (and later in a Mangawhai restaurant).
Tara Iti, now the world’s number six-ranked golf course, has hosted countless celebrities and stars. The most famous guest was former US President Barack Obama in 2018 – only last night name-checked as a political hero by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon – and there have been sightings of Ronan Keating, surfer Kelly Slater, numerous golf and sports stars and billionaires.
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OneRoof went hunting for house stories, but Justin Bieber stole the headlines. Photo / Getty Image
Former US president Barack Obama and Sir John Key playing a round of golf at Tara Iti golf course, Mangawhai, in 2018. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Irish singer Ronan Keating has been spotted singing at Tara Iti Golf Club just south of Mangawhai. Photo / NZME
But you will not hear that from anyone at the club.
Famous names would never cross the lips of Jim Rohrstaff, managing partner of Te Arai Links and board member of Tara Iti and now The Hills, Queenstown, with owner Ric Kayne.
“I could name celebrities, but we certainly don’t,” Rohrstaff told OneRoof yesterday.
“We respect everyone who visits’ privacy. But we have had politicians: [it] was widely reported several years back, a fairly well-known US politician came. We have had plenty of comedians, musicians, actors, and athletes.”
Rohrstaff added that the key attraction of Tara Iti and Te Arai was that people leave famous faces alone.
The luxury five-bedroom house overlooking the first hole at Te Arai’s North Course is for sale for $18m. Photo / Supplied
“They come and enjoy their day just like you or I are today. It is a nice place for them to come and just, you know, be normal human beings and enjoy this environment as we all do.”
If Bieber is hunting for a Kiwi getaway, there is one ready to go: an $18m five-bedroom mansion overlooking the first hole of Te Arai’s North Course.
Dubbed a “golf bach” by Rohrstaff, the Julian Guthrie-designed house looks out across the greens to Te Arai Point’s famous surf break and is a hop and a skip from the award-winning clubhouse. Bieber and his entourage can have all the privacy they need, surrounded by landscaped dunes and trees, living the life in the covered patio with its fireplace, pizza oven and – yip - sea views.
Even the Gaggenau cooktop in the kitchen faces the sea (there is a scullery for the messy stuff), and there is a luxury bar and a statement fireplace
If it all gets too much, he can retreat to the media room to watch movies (Atmos surround sound, seriously high-end projection and screen) or exercise in the gym with even more views of greens and ocean (does it get any better?).
Naturally, there’s all the tech underpinning and security you’d expect in a house of this quality, EV charging, and all the wiring is there for solar panel systems if the star ever needed to go properly off-grid.
- 12 Te Ara Ruruhau, Te Arai, is for sale for $18m
