David and Janine O'Sullivan had been living in Cambridge in England and watching a lot of TV shows such as River Cottage.
They started thinking they would love their own lifestyle block so headed back to New Zealand with their two girls. David had visited before and Janine is from Auckland.
"We had a really good look around the North Island and ended up at the Matakana markets one Saturday morning and as soon as we were there we went, 'This is where we're going to live'," says David.
"It had a beautiful village vibe, really nice market, we ended up staying the night, going to the cinema that evening, staying in a B&B and thinking this is definitely the place for us."
The following day they stopped at the Ascension winery for lunch, looked across the road and saw a for sale sign.
Within months, they had bought the property.
David says the couple has been lucky to have had a good look around the world with his business consulting work and they have seen some amazing places, "but Matakana is truly just one of those rare places in the world where everything seems to work. It's a real beautiful place".
They are near to Omaha and the Tawharanui Peninsula, and their house is situated in what David says is "the golden mile" between Warkworth and Matakana village.
That's a great place to be because not only have they the six-acre dream but the property also offers options to pay for it.
463 Matakana Road, Matakana. Photo / Supplied
There was already a big barn and outbuildings set up for a business, plus they have extended and renovated and now also have a three-bedroom, self-contained accommodation pad with its own entrance, parking and deck.
David and Janine ran a business from the barn area, which is near the road and can be closed off from the rest of the property.
"We originally started with an art gallery and we did antiques and we ran that for about three years when we first got here.
"While that was going on we planted a heritage orchard, we put in some garden beds, we started the B&B, we did all the renovations.
463 Matakana Road, Matakana. Photo / Supplied
"We put in a big country kitchen, built an extension right out into the garden so you get all the north-facing sun, put wraparound decks on it and a sunken fireplace.
"You walk out of the extension, across the deck and then down into the sunken fireplace.
It's a really nice place to spend the evening."
There's also a spa pool next to it and for the extension they used beautiful tawa floors, which David says were from old squash courts.
463 Matakana Road, Matakana. Photo / Supplied
"We got sheep and chickens and ducklings. We started harvesting oil from the olive grove.
