Dream over for Californian duo

Gary Rodrigue and Aaron Allbright. Photo / Supplied

It was the modern-day American Dream - retiring from the Los Angeles rat race at 50 to build a home on a beachfront paradise on the other side of the planet in New Zealand.

And for six years, former IBM vice-president Gary Rodrigue and his partner Aaron Allbright were living that dream, spending their days planting native bush and transforming a Northland farm into the Vara Prasada Estate.

But this year Allbright, an English professor, was diagnosed with a rare cancer, forcing the couple back to California for treatment.

"It's a unique form of leukaemia and he needed specialists who weren't available in New Zealand," Rodrigue said. "We always thought we were going to live and die [at Vara Prasada], but these things change."

The property, which featured in a recent Wall St Journal article about luxury real estate, spreads across 16ha, and has a private, white-sand beach. The two-bedroom house, designed by Ponsonby architect Rick Lambourne, has 5m-high ceilings.

Rodrigue and Allbright came to New Zealand after meeting a group of Kiwis in Fiji 11 years ago.

They fell in love with the tranquillity and returned seven times to search for a slice of paradise, eventually choosing Doubtless Bay, four hours' drive north of Auckland.

Vara Prasada means "sacred gift" in the Indian Sanskrit language.

Rodrigue and Allbright held their civil union ceremony underneath 500-year-old pohutukawa trees and hosted guests for a Kiwi Christmas on the beach each year.

Tenders for the property, being marketed by Bayleys, close next week. It joins a number of other multi-million-dollar Northland properties recently put on the market. Kiwi technology king Terrie Lloyd, who now lives in Japan, is selling his Mangonui home with its two private beaches. A nearby Doubtless Bay property has attracted more than 20 offers. And the owners of Four Villas Eagles Nest - crowned the world's best coastal hotel in the recent Luxury Hotel Awards - are also testing the market, inviting offers above $15 million.

John Partridge, one of the Bayleys estate agents marketing Vara Prasada, said the global financial crisis had meant there were more high-end properties on the market, but there was no shortage of interested buyers.