- Central Otago homeowners are increasingly interested in straw bale homes for their insulation benefits.
- Simon and Nicola Gibbard’s Tarras home, featuring a large cellar, is listed for sale.
- The property includes an olive grove and is marketed with an RV of $1.7m.
Central Otago homeowners appear to be hot for houses made of straw. More than one company is building the age-old structures, which are toasty warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
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One such straw bale home, which comes with a cellar almost as large as the actual home, has been listed for sale in Tarras, halfway between Cromwell and Wānaka.
Straw bale homes have become popular with a subset of Central Otago buyers. There’s even one next door to the three-bedroom Tarras home listed on OneRoof.
The property is well presented and, according to the listing agents, has Mediterranean charm. Photo / Supplied
The character home sits on almost nine hectares of land in the picturesque Ardgour Valley. Photo / Supplied
Vendors Simon and Nicola Gibbard bought 58 Thomson Gorge Road in 2011 when it was almost new, although the olive grove was planted earlier in 2002.
The original owners sold up shortly after completing the build to move nearer to their grandchildren.
“We viewed the place and it had a really good feel. Insulated, quiet, big walls,” Simon said of the house built by Strawmark Wānaka.
“We get up in the morning after having the fire going the night before, and you come out in a T-shirt, put the kettle on, and there’s snow outside, but it’s still warm.”
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The Gibbards have added an enormous cellar, where they store olive oil from their business, Squeaky Hinge Olive Oil.
Simon, a native of Warwickshire in England, couldn’t help himself and added a bar in the 10-metre wide storage room at the rear of an 8-metre passageway. Visitors invariably want to migrate in there for socialising.
“We built it to store our olive oil drums,” he told OneRoof. “Tarras gets cold in the winter and hot in the summer, so we wanted somewhere consistent to store the drums. It’s amazing how cool it stays in the summer; about 15 degrees. It’s 2.1m high by about 8m deep, and the room at the end is 10m wide.
“We store the olive oil in the big room at the back and have a bar on the other side. Everyone wants to sit in the cellar with a glass of wine or whiskey.”
The property comes with its own walk-in cave - a cellar cut into the side of the hill. Photo / Supplied
The cellar was built by cutting into the hill and backfilling. “We dug a huge hole with an excavator, built the structure, and then backfilled. When we finished, we thought, ‘Oh my God, look how huge this thing is’.”
The Gibbards hired a blacksmith to create the hinges and handles. “It’s pretty unique.”
Like much of Central Otago’s valleys, the land is also very productive.
Prime Real Estate agent Phil Gilchrist, who is selling the home, said the views were breathtaking, stretching up the fertile Ardgour Valley to the Hawkdun Range. “It’s a very nice outlook, especially with a bit of snow on the range. But the property is sheltered, and it has the olive grove in front of it.”
Gilchrist, who has sold straw bale homes in the past, said his vendors say it’s like living in a thermos flask. “It stays warm for ages. The bales are over a foot wide and it’s a large mass that keeps [the home] cool in summer and warm in winter. Straw bale is the ideal insulator.”
The straw bale construction gives the home a look of being centuries old, said Gilchrist.
The design emerged in Europe and the United States once the first straw baling machines were invented, enabling the compaction of the straw, according to Ausbale, an Australian industry group.
Ausbale credited Wānaka-based Karin and Alan Cameron, who built the Gibbards home, with founding the New Zealand industry in 1997 when the couple started research into straw bale buildings with BRANZ. The Camerons then formed a company to build load-bearing straw bale homes and the rest is history.
The bales are typically 450mm deep, which is more substantial than traditional timber frame walls. Straw bale walls also offer soundproofing.
Both the home and the Squeaky Hinge extra virgin olive oil business are for sale, although in theory, the buyer could buy the home and other buildings, and the olive grove. The property is listed as a deadline sale closing May 7. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and sits on 8.92ha of land. The RV is $1.7m.
- 58 Thomson Gorge Road, Tarras, Central Otago, is for sale, deadline closing May 7
