*5 Off-street
Although New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based actor Alan Dale may be better known on our TV screens as Jim Robinson in Neighbours, he admits that at heart he is still the Kiwi kid who fell in love with Waiwera as a 12-year-old.
"When I was a kid I used to come up here frequently for swim training at the pools, but no matter how far away I lived couldn't get it out of my head. To me, the whole environment around here is Aotearoa.
"That bush-covered hillside, the flax overhanging the estuary, the sound of the oystercatchers on the beach. All of it. So when I became a father second-time-round I would bring the family here every chance we got."
At that point, Alan and his wife, Tracey, an ex-Miss Australia, rented accommodation in one of the small houses that line the tranquil beachfront. "This row of houses is very tightly held, so when this one came up about four years ago we just jumped at the chance. Our boys had grown up coming here for holidays so they were as happy as we were. It gives them the sort of freedom they just can't access in LA. Climbing trees, kayaking you name it. And the fact that this is one that has nothing between it and the sand except the marine reserve makes it extra special ... the beach becomes almost like an extension of the lawn."
So the beach house with the gabled roof was bought by the Dale family and Alan, Tracey and the boys had the luxury of their own home to offer as a base for the wider family get-togethers. "There are lots of us Dales and when we first saw it we wondered was it large enough because it looks smaller than it actually is," remembers Alan.
"But it's got this large open living space, what's called the 'great' room in America, for living, eating and cooking, and behind it, still on the ground floor, a huge extra room that I use as a bedroom but I think the previous owners ran a home business out of."
Upstairs are three good-sized bedrooms, all with pitched gabled ceilings, dormer windows and a well-located family bathroom.
The bedrooms at the front have windows on two sides and heart-stopping proximity to the sand and water just metres away. Waves lap, oystercatchers crouch on the sand, and a shag flaps heavily overhead to sit in the macrocarpa in the neighbour's garden.
But what makes this beach-side house extra special is tucked away at the rear in its own sheltered courtyard. Here, plumbed into Waiwera's hot spring, is a spa pool.
"It really is a mineral spa. No chlorine required," says Alan, demonstrating with the turn of a tap.
"It comes out of the ground so hot that it only reaches the perfect temperature after you've let it stand for a couple of glasses of chardonnay."
Despite the nostalgia, the freedom and the magical times owning this slice of New Zealand paradise has allowed, Alan and Tracey have made the decision to let it go.
"In the four years we've owned it, we've come here on average five days a year and, as the boys get older, it seems that there's even less time when they haven't got something on. I'm finding it really hard but I cheer myself up that we can always rent just down the road from it like we used to whenever we can make it back."
