Wendyl Nissen and Paul Little have put their Hokianga property on the market and moved to Auckland. Photo / Jane Ussher
Wendyl Nissen and Paul Little have put their Hokianga property on the market and moved to Auckland. Photo / Jane Ussher
Northland writers Wendyl Nissen and Paul Little have made the “bloody hard” decision to leave their beloved Hokianga sanctuary and move back to the big smoke.
After 11 years, the couple has put their Koutu lifestyle blockon the market, packed their bags, boxes, and two dogs, and relocated to their Pt Chevalier cottage in Auckland.
They did it all for the kids - five children and three grandchildren to be exact.
“The main reason we did it was family,” Nissen said.
“We’re needed here. It [the house] did its job, it was somewhere I needed to be.
“The Hokianga is so healing and isolated and quiet. We both wrote five books up there; 10 books came out of that house.”
Nissen and Little bought the modest house near Opononi with expansive views of the Hokianga Harbour at the end of 2013, as a holiday home to retreat to from Auckland.
Nissen’s parents Cedric and Elis lived in the self-contained cottage attached to the main house until Elis passed away from dementia a year later.
The two-hectare property sported a productive vegetable garden and orchard, over a dozen chickens and roosters, and a paddock with calves.
The couple bought the lifestyle block at 71 Waione Rd, in Opononi, in 2013 for $600,000.
The couple regenerated the front paddock with natives, while Nissen also went foraging, did lots of preserving, and made copious amounts of fresh bread.
Nissen, the founder of Green Goddess and a former magazine editor, said she and Little made the decision to leave 18 months ago.
“It was a bloody hard decision,” she said.
“We didn’t make it quickly – the defining moment was, we were down in Auckland for a family party and the kids would say ‘we miss having you guys around’.
“The next day they did an intervention, they said ‘if you felt like it, we would love to have you back here’.
“When Paul had picked himself up off the floor ... from there we started talking about how it would work and how it would come about.”
With Cedric aged 92 and now living in a care home in Auckland, and with Nissen and Little both in their sixties, the time was right to put the Hokianga property on the market, Nissen said.
Nissen said it was “lovely” to be living in their two-bedroom Pt Chev house, which they rented out while they were up north.
Wendyl Nissen and Paul Little with their granddaughter Goldie at their Point Chevalier house in Auckland.
Nissen, who writes freelance for New Zealand Woman’s Weekly while Little writes for The New Zealand Listener, has spoken of her past struggles with anxiety and depression.
And though she’ll miss her daily swims in the ocean and the tranquility of her idyllic beachfront property, she and Little are looking forward to more overseas travel and quality time with family.
“I’ll mostly miss the quiet and solitude and being alone and not having neighbours.
“You can’t see the neighbours from our house. Up there really healed me in some ways.”
Nissen and Little bought the 71 Waione Rd beachfront property for $600,000.
While the CV is $1.41m, the couple is encouraging interest above $1m.
The Opononi house has unique architectural qualities including high-raked ceilings and a spacious kitchen, lounge and dining area.
Nissen said they’ve “done a lot to it” including adding an off-grid tiny house, fences around the property and new decking.
“People will fall in love with it or not, and if you fall in love with it, you’re gone.
“I just hope someone gets as much out of it as I did. I loved every minute of it up there.”
The property is listed with Bayleys on OneRoof’s website and is up for auction on November 20.
Jenny Ling is a news reporter and features writer for the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering roading, lifestyle, business, and animal welfare issues.
