Wānaka multimillionaire and wellness businessman Matt Chapman is selling his recently completed Roys Peninsula home, Synchronicity, to "simplify my life".
Mr Chapman said building the Fearon Hay-designed home had been a five-year labour of love.
The Australian-born businessman said he was selling the four-bedroom home, on 23.8ha of land, so he could focus on finishing his new home, Telepathy, being built on a neighbouring 96ha plot of Roys Peninsula land.
He also wanted to remain connected to the ‘‘deeply peaceful’’ Roys Peninsula, where he has already planted more than 25,000 trees and plans to plant many more, and to the Glendhu Bay community he joined in 2018.
‘‘For me, life will continue. It is always evolving. For me it is about simplification of life and working on projects I love.
"I hope the next people will have the same kindred spirit. And of course, they will be my neighbours. Their other neighbour will be [environmental advocate] John May . . . he's been a wonderful mentor,’’ Mr Chapman said.
Mr Chapman didn't know a soul in New Zealand when he arrived but opened up to the challenge and by 2017 was calling New Zealand home.
‘‘I have really tried made the farm about sharing the life that I enjoy leading, because I am really interested in wellbeing and detuning from those years of running around like a headless chicken.
‘‘That is also what I came to NZ for, to get into the culture and to really call this home. That required quite a step change for me,’’ he said.
An outdoorsy person, with a penchant for running 250km ultra marathons and a desire to promote wellbeing and fitness, he decided in 2018 he wanted to be near the mountains so began searching for property around Queenstown.
He could not find anything that captivated him so decided to look on the Wānaka side of the mountains.
‘‘I was looking for a beautiful raw piece of land that I could just put a caravan on. And voila!''
Mr Chapman purchased the block of Roys Peninsula land that Synchronicity sits on from Wānaka locals Hil and Mario Stapper.
They had owned the land for about 20 years and enjoyed camping on it in their caravan.
Although they had obtained resource consent to build a house they never did.
Mr Chapman, by now a New Zealand citizen, decided he too would camp on the land in his caravan, which he calls Simplicity, and learn about everything there is to do there from planting native vegetation to predator control.
‘‘The house Synchronicity was just about opening that space in your life to let great things come in and enjoy more spontaneity. My previous life was just like a robot. I had ended up on a predetermined way of life,'' he said.
Meanwhile, in 2020, he purchased a neighbouring 97 hectare block from Greg Marler’s Matukituki Trust, further towards the north-eastern tip of Roys Peninsula.
The trust had gone through an expensive, lengthy and complex consenting process to win the right to build a house, but like the Stappers, never did.
Mr Chapman’s ‘‘forever’’ home, Telepathy, is being constructed on that property and in places is subterranean.
Importantly, for those locals who have noted a ‘‘shiny roof’’ on the Telepathy site from the other side of Lake Wānaka, he equally dislikes it, and has good news to share.
It is the roof of a consented, reflective superstructure that was erected to cover and protect the Telepathy building site, especially during winter.
He too will be breathing a sigh of relief when it comes down in the near future.
‘‘Like everyone I don't like seeing the visual disturbance but it was necessary and I will be really happy that comes down. . . When it comes down you won't be able to see the house. You think you are seeing the house but you are not. It will have a grass roof and you really won't be able to see it even from above.''
Mr Chapman co-founded a human resources company, ChapmanCG, in Singapore in 2008, which was valued at $US75 million when it was sold to Will Group in 2022.
