- A luxury lodge in Russell that’s been on and off the market since 2019 has finally sold.
- The asking price had dropped almost $2m in the last 12 months as the vendor tried to get a deal over the line.
- The lodge has hosted countless celebrities over the years, including chef Chelsea Winter.
A luxury lodge overlooking Matauwhi Bay, in Russell, has finally sold after the vendor dramatically dropped the asking price by almost $2 million.
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The seven-bedroom property, which has hosted countless celebrities and business tycoons over the years, has been on and off the market since 2019, but in the last 12 months, the owner declared he was prepared to take a hit to get a deal over the line.
The most recent listing for the waterfront trophy home on Russell Whakapara Road declared that the vendor was “very motivated to sell” and had dropped the price to $5.9m (plus GST).
The listing agent, Ray White’s Quintin Havenga, posted last week that the property had sold on his homepage. OneRoof reached out to him to find out the sale price, but he declined to talk about the deal.
The luxury commercial kitchen was presided over by the owners’ son, Ben Munro, a 2012 Master Chef competitor. Photo / Supplied
The house took the original owner 16 years to complete. Photo / Supplied
OneRoof profiled the property in 2024, when it was with a different agent. Back then, the asking price was $7.75m. “Price reduced! Selling below the RV of $9,690,000 and fully furnished, this much-loved waterfront paradise must be sold immediately,” the listing said.
The listing agent told OneRoof that the vendor was “based between New Zealand and Australia, and he’s downsizing his property portfolio”.
“It’s all about life and wanting to move on. Do you hang on and have one of the best houses in Russell, or finally come around to ‘yeah, this has got to go’?”
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The vendor, construction magnate Bruce Munro, told OneRoof last year that he and his wife wanted to spend more time with their grandchildren, who were based overseas.
“That’s our motivation, to go and be with them. As we get older, we need to be with our kids,” he said.
Munro, who made his fortune in Dubai, bought the lodge in 2008 for just over $7m during a whirlwind trip to New Zealand. “I saw the place on the internet. It was owned by an American guy. It had taken him 16 years to build it,” he told OneRoof last year.
“It got its first code of compliance in October 2008. We added the driveway, the car park, the retaining walls, and all the bathrooms.”
The property has its own mooring and access to a private beach. Photo / Supplied
Guest facilities include a pool room, indoor pool and spa and a 750-bottle wine cellar. Photo / Supplied
The luxury home, which sits on a 3.86-hectare peninsula in the Bay of Islands, features an indoor pool, a spa and sauna, a 750-bottle wine cellar, a commercial-grade kitchen, a helicopter landing area, and private mooring.
Munro told OneRoof he had been advised that building the house would cost between $8m and $8.9m now, and that the land alone was worth $4.5m.
Before Covid struck, Munro ran the lodge as an accommodation business. Guests included international celebrities, yachting syndicates and rich-listers. Munro would not name names but Chelsea Winter, who appeared on MasterChef alongside Munro’s son, Ben, got married at the lodge.
He told OneRoof Ben would often do the cooking and that guests would take boating and helicopter trips to Kauri Cliffs for golfing or to Hole in the Rock for sightseeing.
“I bought a Boston Whaler [boat] from Dame Kiri te Kanawa and we would take it out to do fishing trips, lunches and viewings of private bays like Whangamumu Harbour. We probably did 1000 hours over summer. We had a lot of people come back and bring their friends,” he said.
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