A prime, elevated property for sale in Queenstown’s Kelvin Heights has been in one family’s hands for 65 years.
Owned nowadays by Margaret and Dick Shanks, it was originally acquired by Margaret’s Southland-farming parents, who built a holiday crib — one of the peninsula’s first homes — in 1959.
Dick says the three-bedroom house — on an 1171 square metre section on the corner of Peninsula Rd and Loop Rd — had a coal range, no power for the first three years and a Tilley lamp, run on kerosene, for lighting.
He and Margaret honeymooned there after they married in July, 1969.
The first man landed on the moon during the week they were there, Dick recalls.
His parents-in-law had intended retiring there, but his father-in-law died while he was still on the farm, in Waimahaka, while his wife died
later in Invercargill.
The property was then divided between Margaret and her two siblings, but she and Dick bought them out in 1986.
Farming themselves, just out of Gore, they’d use the crib during Christmas, Easter and Labour Weekend, plus a week during winter, though they also rented it out a couple of times.
Early peninsula home: This late-1950s crib, above Loop Rd, occu pied the site till 2006, and is pictured in George Singleton’s history of Kelvin Peninsula, Our Place In the Sun
In 2006, they replaced it with a large two-level home built by David Reid Homes.
‘‘They had to dig down to meet the height restriction,’’ Dick says.
The house has three bedrooms and a bathroom with a jacuzzi tub, plus kitchen and open-plan dining and living area on the ground floor, while upstairs is a master bedroom with an ensuite, a study and a private balcony.
There’s also a three-car garage and parking space for two more cars or a boat.
Dick says they’re putting the property up for sale as it was getting too big for them, and their health isn’t what it was — they’re moving to a retirement home in Gore.
‘‘It’s sad in a way because we’ve made some good friends here.’’
Local Premium Real Estate agent Hamish Walker says ‘‘I feel very honoured and privileged to be entrusted by the family to bring this special
property to the market’’.
‘‘It’s a huge section, and you’ve got a front-row position over Lake Whakatipu.
‘‘It’s incredibly sunny with really good views, and it’s a really warm, well-built home.’’
The property’s for sale by deadline sale, closing July 5.
Walker suggests it’s likely to fetch more than its capital valuation of $2,930,000, of which $1.96m is land value.
