A high-end property for sale at picturesque Glen Tui Heights in Bob’s Cove, a 15-minute drive from Queenstown’s CBD, was fun to build and you can tell.
Set on a 3919 square metre section at 46 Tui Dr, the top-spec six-bedroom, four-bathroom premises puts entertainment front and centre among the bush setting.
On the market fully furnished, it sleeps 16 across a main house, two separate cabins and separate games room that total 242sqm.
The property comes with visitor accommodation consent and the owners, who live nearby, have been using it as both a lucrative Airbnb and wedding venue for up to 50 people.
As Glen Tui Heights project manager for the first six years of the subdivision, owner Mark Wikstrom shaped the unique character of the area in general, and this site in particular.
In 2017, he shifted the main house — which he’d been involved with the build of seven years prior — from a neighbouring property on to the section, added the two one-bed and bathroom cabins and a garage he turned into a games room with toilet and bunk beds.
‘‘We picked it up and moved it on to a concrete pad we’d put down with underfloor heating.
‘‘We put it all back together like a big jigsaw puzzle.’’
Wikstrom says the project evolved organically around night-time ‘‘barbecues and bevvies’’ with the builders, local firm Elevate Construction, led by Reon Boe.
‘‘We threw ideas around … we didn’t just follow the plan, we made it up as we went along.
‘‘They got to know what I liked.
‘‘We had a lot of laughs and a lot of fun doing it.’’
The end result is ‘‘so different’’ from the original plan, and Wikstrom couldn’t have been happier.
One example of the change-ups is the large six-metre-wide deck that runs along the full frontage of the main house, complete with spa and barbecue area.
‘‘The builder said ‘have you ever heard anyone say ‘I wish I’d built my deck smaller? — go another metre out, mate’, and I’m stoked I did because now it’s got all the room in the world.’’
Another happy outcome was the macrocarpa panelling he’d put on a feature wall to add some warmth to the white interiors.
‘‘Luckily the builder painted the wall black behind it because the panels opened up a 10-millimetre gap when the wood dried and shrunk a little.
‘‘The negative detailing looked so good we ended up continuing it in quite a few other places in the house — it was an absolute fluke.’’
Rustic rich timber also features in bespoke furniture throughout the property such as bar and table tops, wave mirrors and headboard of the master bed, that all come as part of the package.
However, the most striking wooden element’s the giant 3.5m-high mahogany sculpture of an eagle, perched with all 15m of its wings out-stretched at the section’s edge.
Standing sentinel: The owner is open to offers on the giant mahogany eagle perched on the site
Wikstrom spotted the huge bird on a trip to Bali in 2021.
‘‘It was out the front of a shop, we were sitting there having lunch and I said to [wife] Trace ‘I think I’m going to buy that eagle and chuck it on the front lawn’.”
And so he did, having the five-tonne artwork taken apart in pieces, shipped over in a container and put back together again on-site.
‘‘It’s probably a bald eagle, but I liked it because it looked like a Haast eagle that used to live up in the mountains behind here.’’
The bird doesn’t come as part of the package, but Wikstrom is open to offers for it.
Another fun element’s the phone box toilet in the games room, in which users can con template vistas of New York and Washington DC and a peeping tom looking through the shutters.
As a marriage celebrant, Wikstrom’s played an active role hosting weddings on the site, an aspect he’s ‘‘really enjoyed, I’ve met some great people’’.
Colliers agent Nicole Bell says the registered holiday home is both an “outstanding venue” and a perfect “lock-up-and-leave”.
It’s garnering good interest with a solid inquiry out of Australia looking for a holiday home, she says.
‘‘Mark and Tracy have done a very good job on it, they’ve used high-end product and it’s very well designed.
‘‘Everything’s top spec, it’s really beautifully done.’’
The deadline sale for the property closes at noon, Thursday, August 3, unless sold prior.
The property’s capital valuation is $2 million, of which $1.1m is land value.
Bell’s expecting it’ll fetch well above the valuation — “circa $3m”.
