Wensley-associated company snaps up rural Ladies Mile property
A company part-controlled by local Greg Wensley — whose dad Ross developed three leaky-home apartment complexes on Queenstown’s Frankton Road — has paid an eye-watering $15 million for a 3.2-hectare rural pad on Ladies Mile.
The pad’s amidst a 65ha block north of the Ladies Miles highway that’s being controversially rezoned for about 2400 residential units along with commercial and community facilities.
Greg Wensley owns 45% of the company, Winter Miles Airstream Ltd, that recently settled on the property at 495 Ladies Mile.
According to property records, it last sold for just $3.9m in December, 2019.
The latest sale was brokered by local Premium Real Estate agent Hamish Walker, who confirms it was concluded some time ago but won’t comment further.
Greg’s a director of Winter Miles Airstream along with his wife Olivia Wensley’s brother, Aucklander Eoin Miles.
Olivia last year contested the Queenstown-Lakes mayoralty — her campaign somewhat undermined by concerns ratepayers would be stumping up for leaky-home claims against Ross Wensley’s Oaks Shores development.
Asked this week about the Ladies Mile purchase, Greg says ‘‘we’re excited to be in there and help solve part of Queenstown’s housing crisis’’.
‘‘And we think council’s masterplan is a really good outcome and will provide lots of facilities out in the Mile that families living in the area really desperately need, and those facilities will reduce the traffic congestion.’’
Asked about the steep increase in the property’s market value, he says ‘‘there’s a lot of potential out in Ladies Miles which is what’s shown in that masterplan.’’
An earlier sales blurb for 495 Ladies Mile reveals the property included a five-bedroom, two-bathroom, 270 square metre house, landscaped
grounds, two-car garage with a studio/office above and a tennis court.
Also included were horse paddocks, three stables, a tack room, three-bay implement shed for hay or vehicle storage and a consented chopper hangar and helicopter pad.
Under the Ladies Mile masterplan developed by Queenstown’s council — and now the subject of a proposed district plan variation which is out for public consultation — the northern part of the property would host high-density housing and the slice closest to the highway would part-host a new high school.
