Mahurangi West: A walk in the park

A Mahurangi property has amazing views and groves of ancient trees in what was a 19th century park, writes Donna Fleming.

Fair Prospect Estate, 285 Mahurangi West Road, Mahurangi West.

Keith Money has achieved a lot in his 70 years. A prolific writer, painter and photographer, one of the things he's best known for is his work with ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn, which has resulted in four books and a film.

But one of the endeavours he's found particularly satisfying has been preserving the park-like grounds of his Mahurangi West property, Fair Prospect Estate.

The 17ha of land is home to native trees, particularly totara and puriri, which are hundreds of years old. There's also a pohutukawa estimated to be 800 years old.

Extensive milling went on in the area in the mid-19th century, but the owner of the property at the time had the foresight to keep groves of trees, which have survived until today. In between times, the land had been divided up and five years ago Keith bought back much of it from a neighbour, who had originally been reluctant to sell.

"I'm thrilled to bits that I've been able to stitch it back together," says Keith. "It's a very rare example of a 19th century park."

He's also had covenants put on the trees so they can't be chopped down, and kept livestock away so they won't be damaged. "It's been very important to me to do what I can to preserve them," says Keith.

He started going to Mahurangi when he was a teenager living in Auckland. "It was a favourite haunt of my parents' and we would bring horses up here to ride. I knew it terribly well."

But a few years later Keith left on an OE to England, his parents' birthplace, and it was to be decades before he returned. "My OE turned out to be much longer than most - I've lived most of my life in the UK," explains Keith.

He came back to New Zealand in 1995 to look after his elderly widowed mother, who was then living at Fair Prospect, which she'd bought while he was away. Keith, who inherited it after his mother's death in 2000, has carried out extensive work to the house as well as the land. "The house was built in 1980 but had never really been finished properly - it was like an army drill hall. I reorganised the whole interior and put another level on top."

He's also started building work on a two-storey wing that, once completed, could have a spectacular master bedroom with en suite upstairs and huge entertainment room downstairs. "I'll leave that up to the new owners to decide what they'd like."

The views from the house across the park-like grounds to the water are breathtaking and have provided much inspiration for Keith, a self-described "arty bloke". Overseas visitors have also been wowed by the vista.

"There's a 12m picture window in the lounge and once people sit in front of that, it's very difficult to get them to move again."

Moving from Mahurangi will be a wrench for Keith, but he needs to be in the northern hemisphere for the sake of his writing career. "It's going to be hard to leave - I will never live anywhere like this again."

Vital Statistics

SIZE: 17ha.

PRICE INDICATION: Over $1.5 million. Auction May 11.

INSPECT: By appointment.

CONTACT: Ben and Nola Kloppers, Harveys, ph 09 425 8589, mob 021 425 599.

FEATURES: Park-like grounds with historic native trees; multi-level home with panoramic views; block walls built for a two-storey wing; all-day sun; 40 minutes from downtown Auckland.