Waiheke: Grapes and salt air

Live on a vineyard and create your own label, without the hard work.

Zell Vineyard and Zell House, Goldwater Estate, 198-220 Wilma Rd, Waiheke Island.

Eight years ago the Goldwater Estate's Zell Vineyard was a bare block of land, with a basic fibrolite bach looking across Putiki Bay.

The bach is still there, but is now surrounded by dozens of rows of grapevines. Kim and Jeanette Goldwater purchased the land, as well as Thomas Zell's four-bedroom weatherboard house on a neighbouring section, to plant chardonnay vines as a complement to their reds over the road.

It's been a success, but now the winery needs to free up capital to aid its expansion in Marlborough, so is offering someone the rare opportunity to buy and live on part of a working vineyard. The purchaser will own the land, while Goldwater will continue to tend and harvest the vines. There is even the option to create your own label. The three-bedroom bach is liveable while you figure out the fall of the sun and the ways of the wind, and design a grander home. The top of the hill seems like the logical place for a house, so you can admire the tidal view, and wander down between the vines, through a band of trees to the bay's edge, where you have riparian rights.

The house on the section next door is also for sale either with the vineyard, or separately. Kim and Jeanette's daughter Gretchen, her partner Ken Christie and their three children, have lived here for the past eight years since becoming involved in the family business. Gretchen says the house was built in the 1960s by the Stanaway family, before The Causeway road below was constructed.

"They used to have a little wharf where they could tie up the fishing boat."

There is still access to the water, and to a little valley with trees and a stream.

"Our kids don't want to leave the valley," smiles Gretchen. "They say they've put too much work into their huts down there. And they've loved playing in the mud when the tide goes out. We have ritual hosings down."

She and Ken have updated the house in their time there. The sunniest side of the house has been turned into the kitchen, dining and living area, which opens through bifold doors to a deck looking out to the vineyard and the bay. Hallways behind the living area lead to the four bedrooms and bathroom. The master, in the old living room, opens onto its own little terrace. Trees surrounding the house give the bedrooms a green outlook.

Gretchen says her family will stay in a house on another part of the Goldwater Estate while they consider their next step.

"We've owned a section at Church Bay for years, so this is the push we need to finally plan and build our home there."