Unconventional design for $7m Lake Hawea property

Lake Hawea, north of Wanaka. The international owner of the land plans to spend $5m developing the Lake Hawea property. Photo / Christine Cornege

The wealthy British-born owner of Mt Isthmus Station on the western shores of Lake Hawea plans to build a house with an unconventional design on the property.

Singapore-based former hedge fund manager Richard Magides bought the 2945ha station in 2014 from the Burdon family for a reported $7 million.

According to the Overseas Investment Office's full decision on the sale, Magides planned to spend about $5m building a luxury farm and wilderness lodge and develop tourism activities on the property.

As part of the conditions of the sale, Magides had to apply for the resource consent needed to build the lodge within 18 months of the sale being finalised, which happened in late 2015.

Once resource consent had been granted, the lodge needed to be completed within two years, or else Magides would breach the conditions of the sale.

In his application to buy the station, Magides said he expected the lodge to create 30 full-time-equivalent temporary jobs and seven permanent jobs and host up to eight guests.

His New Zealand company, New Zermatt Properties Ltd, has applied for resource consent to build a house of an unconventional design at Dinner Flat, about 15km north of the Lake Hawea township.

Two previous resource consents have been granted for the land that established a building platform there, allowing a dwelling, farm building or lodge to be built.

The building is described as a dwelling in the plans and there is no mention of it being used as a luxury lodge.

Queenstown Lakes District Council spokeswoman Vida McCord said that under the council's district plan, an applicant did not have to specify whether a building in the rural general zone would be used as a lodge. Designed to mimic the flow of the surrounding landscape, the building includes four peaks of varying heights and almost appears to curve into itself.

It will be finished with muted browns and greys with a very low level of light reflectance.

At ground-floor level, the building will house a kitchen, living areas facing northeast across Lake Hawea and four bedrooms. A veranda will be located along the southeastern and eastern elevations of the building. Overseas Investment Office spokeswoman Joanna Carr said the office had been told by the investor (Magides) that resource consents had been lodged with the Queenstown Lakes District Council.

If consent was approved, construction was expected to start later this year, the OIO had been told. Flanked by both Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, Mt Isthmus Station was originally part part of Glen Dene, a pastoral lease property that went through tenure review in 2007. It was put up for sale in 2009.

Magides also owns a number of other notable properties, including Ben Avon Station in the Ahuriri Valley, Parora Bay Winery in Russell and land in Queenstown.

He made his fortune as a co-founder of Singapore-based hedge fund Artradis Fund Management, which at its peak had assets estimated about $US4.5 billion.