73 Pipiroa Road, Russell

Vendor ready to meet the market and has asked me to present all offers.

Are you the right person for this place?

Not everyone is. But if you get excited by rare, wild and waterfront, keep reading.

Are you ecological at heart? You prefer birds and tide lines to concrete and cul de sacs. You like the idea of a home that sits with the landscape, not on top of it.

Are you a water lover? You want kayaks and paddleboards at the ready, and you like the sound of riparian rights giving you a direct, personal relationship with the water's edge.

Are you an architectural thinker? You would rather create something thoughtful and site specific than roll out a standard plan. An elevated home with decks and boardwalks, sitting lightly within a mangrove basin, sounds more exciting than another house on a flat suburban section.

Are you a collector of the truly rare? You understand that "once in a lifetime" is overused in real estate, but "one of only two possible homes in this entire bay, with riparian rights" is a different level of scarcity.

This section offers a hidden, cleared and consented building footprint tucked into a mangrove clearing, with mangroves wrapping three sides and grass, trees and beach out front. Consents are in place not only for the building footprint but also for the solid filled waterfront area and for the selective removal of specified non native trees, giving you a clear, approved pathway through 25 year old Pohutukawa to open up the outlook and shape both house and foreshore. No rows of neighbours. No steady stream of cars. Just you, the tide and the birdlife, in a bay where only one other home can exist.

Most people’s first reaction is simple: "isn’t it just a wetland, and won’t it cost a fortune to build?" With the right design it becomes so much more - it becomes a sheltered, private retreat on a consented, engineered building footprint in one of the Bay’s most tightly held positions. A little more complex than a standard section, absolutely. Impossible or insane, no. The extra thought in the build is the price you pay for owning something nobody else can copy.

A day here looks different. Morning coffee watching the tide move through the mangroves. Bare feet across the grass to the beach. Quiet nights with only one other home’s lights in the whole bay. If subdivision living makes you yawn, and you would rather be talking to an architect than a body corporate, this is the kind of site that will stay in your mind.


If you are eco minded, water obsessed and hunting for something genuinely one of a kind, this section deserves a walk, not just a glance online. Get in touch and we can stand by the building site together. The photos do not quite capture what it feels like to be the person who can say: "We are one of only two homes in this bay."

Contact Emma Rich at New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty for more information.

Boundary lines are indicative only.