Jagged Edge gets lifeline

Photo / Supplied

The $1 million glass facade of a Wellington millionaire's $10m space-age dream holiday home near Queenstown has been left in pieces after contractors walked off the job, saying they had not been paid.

Work on the mountain site in the exclusive Lake Ridge subdivision came to a standstill in March last year after a Queenstown building company failed to pay local contractors and was put into liquidation.

Several hundred thousand dollars worth of massive glass panels, made to order in Singapore, have been stored for 10 months in a garage on the secluded site - high above Glenorchy Rd - owned by a Wellington businessman.

Among those out of pocket is glass expert Jason Dent, a shareholder in Queenstown Glass Ltd who has since moved to Auckland to rebuild his business after Slant Build Ltd, subcontracted to build the glass-walled home, folded.

Out of pocket too is Jagged Edge's owner, who had paid more than $4m to Slant, only to find local subbies had not been paid and eventually walked off the job.

News that contractors had not been paid the money he handed over to Slant made him "feel bad", he said.

Now the businessman, who asked not to be named, has taken over the project, injected more money and hired new glass contractors who are working on the complicated glass facade, which "floats" suspended by a complicated support structure. He hoped to be able to use most of the existing glass panels, he said.

Topping the soaring glass facade is a vast, multi-tonne concrete roof which will be held up by giant cables embedded into the cliff-face above the house. The businessman bought the site with its extreme house design in 2007 because he thought it was "a very cool building".

He is also building a guest house, said by local sources to be worth $8m, designed by an Austrian architect.

Jagged Edge is the brainchild of Queenstown designer Warrick Weber who is now working as a consultant on the project until it is completed.

It was Weber's business partner Glenn Parker who ran and owned Slant Build. After the collapse Parker left Queenstown and is believed to be working in Abu Dhabi in the Gulf Emirates.

Both Jagged Edge and the guest house, perched high on a mountainside near Moke Lake, have sweeping views of Lake Wakatipu and look across to Cecil and Walter Peaks.

Meanwhile Dent, a shareholder in Queenstown Glass Ltd, says he is gutted he will no longer be part of the Jagged Edge project which he described as "a mathematical masterpiece".

Dent claims to hold the intellectual property for the facade design and without critical data in his possession, the new company will have difficulty re-creating the facade.

"It will be like trying to put a complex jigsaw puzzle together with a couple of thousand pieces missing. It's all on a hard drive that I have."