On March 31 the vendor dropped the asking price from $16m to $13.5m.
The sale marks the return of the island to New Zealand ownership after 26 years. The vendor is Olivia Cayetana Hallman, sole shareholder of Pepin Island Sheep Station and Resort. Companies Register documents list her under a New York address.
Hallman's mother, German businesswoman Viola von Hohenzollern, bought the island in 1995 for $2m; von Hohenzollern died in 2012.
New Zealand Sotheby's International Realty agent, Ian Keightley, said he has been asked to keep the price and the buyer's identity confidential.
Keightley said there was a "multi-offer sale" involving two New Zealand buyers.
"Covid multiplied inquiries, I'd say by one thousand per cent. We had a lot of interest from expats but people couldn't travel, so that was a difficulty," Keightley said.
The 518-hectare island is currently a sheep farm and offers private accommodation in three small baches scattered around the property. It also includes an "expansive seven-bedroom weatherboard farmhouse" according to Sotheby's information. The farmhouse is occupied by farm manager, Andrew Newton.
Keightley said the buyer intends to "continue the current farming operation, tourist accommodation business, maintain current public access and further explore the establishment of strategic environmental areas across the island."
Pepin is connected to the mainland by a naturally occurring boulderbank causeway and a road, owned and maintained by the Nelson City Council.
The road connects both the Pepin Island property (which is freehold land) to the mainland and also the popular Cable Bay beach, where the public have access to the island up to the high tide mark.
Nelson-based National list MP Nick Smith had seen the prospective sale as an opportunity to extend public access to the island's coastline. However, the sale to domestic buyers precludes the change.
