Le Jardin Secret

Wind past the historic Ferry Hotel and a handful of old cottages, and the road simply runs out at the Old Lower Shotover Bridge, where the Queenstown Trail crosses the river. Right at the top, behind a tall screen of poplars and hedging, is 100 Spence Road: 3,840 square metres of established grounds on the river terrace, and one of the basin’s best-kept secrets.

In 1995 this land was bare paddock. The owners built a formal garden here for visitors to their peony flower farm, and it went on to become a wedding venue in its own right. At its heart is an ornate rotunda, framed by a parterre of clipped box, with dry-stone schist walls, stone steps and gravel paths winding beneath flowering cherries. Decades of growth have given it something money can’t buy: towering poplars, conifers and cherries that make it private and settled, and turn it into a sea of blossom every spring.

Within the grounds sits a large designated building platform of around 735 square metres, allowing a home with a footprint of up to 500 square metres, set well back from the road behind protected planting. Under the district plan, a home within the registered platform is a controlled activity. Its own driveway has been consented and the new crossing approved and installed with brand new gates, and treated water comes by easement from a private bore beside the river.

Then there’s what’s on the doorstep. The trail is a stroll from the gate, linking you by bike or on foot to Frankton, Lake Hayes, Arrowtown and Gibbston’s wineries. By car, Frankton is eight minutes away, the airport ten and central Queenstown fifteen.

Tucked away, rich in history and decades in the making, this is a rare chance to build something special in one of the most quietly beautiful corners of the Wakatipu Basin.

100 Spence Road. A secret garden at the end of the road, waiting for its home.