Tropical makeover for historic spa

By ROSALEEN MACBRAYNE

Taupo's historic Spa Hotel is stepping into the future, without forgetting its past. Developers plan to spend $45 million to create a luxury health resort on the hotel site, in a thermal valley outside the town.

The centrepiece, expected to be ready in the first half of next year, will be a large lagoon pool with 28 Tahitian-style bures (dwellings) on poles.

From their decks, spiral staircases will lead down into the warm water.

"It will be really something," said Auckland-based owner Mike McGurk.

"You haven't got the lake view but the Waikato River is nearby. There are nice walks and a golf course up the road."

Mr McGurk's manager in Taupo, Lee Maihi, said the park-like valley was "a gem".

It was intended to "marry the old and the new but not allow it to become too commercial".

More than half the 8ha site, slightly off the beaten track but not far from Taupo's AC Baths and Events Centre, has never been developed.

Off Centennial Drive, a gated settlement will contain 50 privately-owned apartments, with courtyards backing on to their own thermal pools.

Closer to the lagoon will be self-contained chalets, as well as bures, for visitors.

Sitting apart at the back of the valley is the Spa Hotel, more of a tavern these days after a devastating fire ripped through the complex in 1991.

The Spa's origins go back to when the Armed Constabulary occupied the site in 1869, during the New Zealand wars.

Quartermaster Edward Lofley built a lean-to structure over a thermal stream, from where he sold liquor to the troops.

Later he erected accommodation and bathing sheds so travellers could enjoy the naturally hot mineral waters.

Behind the present hotel three of the old cottages will be preserved and the others replaced in similar style.

The jewel in the Spa's crown is a meeting house well over a century old, which has survived floods and fires. The work of famous Arawa master carver Wero, it is the only privately-owned meeting house in the country and is protected by a special act of Parliament.

Mr Maihi said that was why it would never leave New Zealand, even though the Spa Hotel owners had been offered $4 million to let the meeting house go to Korea.