A prominent former pilot’s put a uniquely-located farm, farmhouse and cottage he’s built up over 30 years on the market.
Chris Willett, who established Te Anau floatplane business Waterwings Airways and Queenstown-based Milford Sound Scenic Flights, bought the 22-hectare Arrow Junction property off farmer Dave Bunn when it only had two paddocks and four trees, he says.
Sun-drenched Arrowcliff Farm’s at the end of Morven Ferry Road, and the Arrow irrigation pipeline, and is bordered by the Kawarau and Arrow Rivers.
Willett first built a two-bed room cottage — now let out for holiday accommodation — while he built a three-bedroom farmhouse with a generous-sized, fully-glassed sunroom, attached.
‘‘I designed it in feet and inches and paid an architectural draughtsman $600 to metricise my drawings, and it was money well spent because his wife ran the building inspector’s office,’’ he says.
Borrowing an ‘‘old-England’’ look, he used a lot of recycled, native timbers.
He also incorporated a wine cellar, an enclosed solar-powered 14-metre swimming pool, with its own shower and toilet, a pizza oven and a lily pond — there’s also a nearby duck pond with its own maimai.
Willett originally ran deer in nine paddocks, but has since reduced herd numbers, while fattening about 20 cattle.
He also planted about 500 olive trees from which he extracts ‘‘lovely’’ olive oil.
Married to an artist, Ika, Willett, who turns 80 shortly, says he’s selling up as ‘‘it’s good timing’’ — he thinks they’ll probably settle closer to Arrowtown.
The property’s being marketed by local Bayleys agents Jeff Toner and Kevin Davies, who are running a deadline sale closing Thursday.
Toner says some of the inquiries he’s had are from people interested in the privacy factor.
‘‘I think you could probably build another house on site, whether you could subdivide it is a moot point — at the moment it’s not complying, but time may well change that.’’
Willett says the property might also suit a golf course, or be good for growing lucerne.
‘‘You could pull out all these interior fences and have 50 acres of lucerne — you’d get $150,000 to $200,000 worth of lucerne off here a year.’’
Toner says the land might also suit grape-growing.
The property’s capital valuation is $5,252,000, of which $3,700,000 is land value.
