You turn off the country road into a quiet hollow of the Port Hills, ring the bell at the gate, and the drive leads up through old trees to the mansion. Before the entrance the wide Great Lawn, beyond it the plain and, on the horizon, the Southern Alps. Inside, a fire crackles, someone takes the luggage, a glass is offered. You arrive and step into another century.
The Location
Otahuna lies in Tai Tapu, in a sheltered hollow of the Port Hills at the foot of the Banks Peninsula, around twenty-five minutes from Christchurch and its airport. All around the gentle hills of Canterbury, before it the wide plain, behind it the snow-capped Southern Alps.
The estate covers thirty acres of garden and woodland, once part of a vast sheep and cattle station. Behind the gate the drive climbs through old oaks and cedars up to the mansion, a building in the Queen Anne style with turrets, gables and verandas. Before the house the Great Lawn stretches out, from which the view reaches over the gardens to the mountains. To arrive here is to step into a piece of living history.
Backstory
Otahuna was built in 1895 by Sir Heaton Rhodes, politician, pioneer farmer and gardener, as an extravagant wedding gift for his young wife Jessie, the largest private house New Zealand had ever seen. For sixty years Rhodes lived here, made the house a social hub of Canterbury and planted the daffodil fields that today carry more than a million blooms.
After his death in 1956 the house became a seminary, then a commune, until it fell into decline. It was saved by Hall Cannon and Miles Refo, two Americans from New York who fell in love with New Zealand on a holiday, bought the estate out of receivership in 2006 and opened it as a lodge a year later. Since then, they have been restoring the house and gardens and carrying on the Rhodes’ hospitality. Many of the staff have been here for years, some for decades.
Interior & Architecture
Otahuna is regarded as the best example of Queen Anne architecture in Australasia, a building of irregular shape, with romantic rooflines and rich ornament. Inside, a hand-carved staircase of kauri wood, panelling of rimu, original lead-light windows and fifteen working wood-burning fireplaces, all preserved fabric, no reproduction, honoured with a Category 1 heritage listing.
Cannon and Refo restored the house over years, had furniture made specially in Canterbury and commissioned New Zealand artists for the paintings. In the rooms, carved inglenooks and stained glass meet rich fabrics, muted colours and fresh flowers from the garden.
In the drawing room stands an Edwardian piano that came to New Zealand aboard HMS Renown in 1927. The patio outside the kitchen was built from the bricks of the eleven chimneys that collapsed in the 2010 earthquake. Old and new interlock, without the house feeling like a museum.
A Look Inside
Otahuna counts seven suites, plus the entry hall, drawing room, dining room, library and the wine cellar in the old game house. The five suites and two master suites each carry their own character, shaped by their original use and named after the people and customs of the house: the Botanical Suite in the former morning room, the Clark Suite in the lady of the house’s former bedroom, plus Jockey Jones and the sunny Polo Suite.
The largest are the two master suites: the Rhodes Suite, a series of four rooms with an octagonal sitting room and a balcony to the Great Lawn, and the Verandah Suite with its nine-metre private terrace.
Everywhere original fireplaces, carved bays and stained glass, plus deep bathtubs, rain showers and freshly picked flowers. Super-king beds and hand-pressed linen promise deep sleep.
Culinary
Dinner is the heart of a stay: a four-course menu, cooked by executive chef Jimmy McIntyre, who has been at the house for over twenty years, the longest-serving lodge chef in New Zealand. His cooking is farm-to-table in the literal sense, for the ingredients come from the estate’s own potager garden, which carries more than a hundred and twenty varieties of fruit, nuts and vegetables, plus its own sheep, hens and pigs.
The menu changes with what the garden gives and joins European, English, Asian and New Zealand influences: beetroot soup with goat’s cheese, Tai Tapu duck, poached crayfish. You dine communally at the great table in the dining room beneath the gilded Victorian wallpaper, or privately in the library, the turret or your own suite.
Each course comes with a New Zealand wine, chosen from the cellar with its seven hundred bottles. Since 2025 outside guests too may dine at one of the few tables available daily, which makes dinner Canterbury’s most coveted reservation. Before the meal, drinks and canapés are served by the fire.
Wellness & Relaxation
The calm of the house and its gardens is the real cure. Outdoors lies a spa pool, a warm basin in which, after a day in the green, you let the gaze wander over the plain, plus an outdoor pool in summer. The thirty acres of garden are recognised as a garden of national significance, with a geometric Dutch garden, a pond, woodlands and the famous daffodil field; a slow walk through them does more than any treatment.
Those who wish borrow a bicycle and ride through the hills. In the evening the open fires warm the rooms, and in the library wait books, board games and wooden jigsaw puzzles. Rest here means coming to stillness to the rhythm of an old country house, among bellbirds and blossoming trees.
Surrounding Area
Otahuna lies at the foot of the Banks Peninsula, a sea-frayed peninsula formed from the craters of extinct volcanoes. In the hidden bay of Akaroa, an old French settlement with street names like Rue Lavaud, you can swim with the rare Hector’s dolphins, the smallest in the world. Christchurch, the garden city, has risen anew after the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, with the rebuilt cathedral, the street-art quarter and the moving Cardboard Cathedral by the architect Shigeru Ban.
© Tobias Keller, Unsplash
Barely an hour north lies the young wine region of Waipara with its limestone-marked pinot noirs and rieslings; the Pegasus Bay winery keeps one of the country’s finest restaurants. Culturally grounded is a visit to private gardens of Canterbury, which a local connoisseur opens even where they otherwise stay closed. Those after the big picture take the TranzAlpine, one of the world’s most beautiful train journeys, over Arthur’s Pass to the wild west coast. An insider tip is the observatory at Lake Tekapo in the Mackenzie Basin, where the sky, a dark-sky reserve, ranks among the darkest on earth. Those after craft find local ceramics, wool and design at Christchurch’s Riverside Market and the city’s studios.
Activities
For garden lovers: The guided tour through the thirty acres of historic gardens with the head gardener, the daffodil field with over a million blooms in spring, the visit to private gardens of Canterbury with a connoisseur.
For the appetite: The four-course menu by chef Jimmy McIntyre, the three-hour cooking class in the potager garden, the tasting in the wine cellar, the pinot noirs and rieslings of the nearby Waipara valley.
For nature lovers: The swimming with the rare Hector’s dolphins at Akaroa, the smallest in the world, the bellbirds in the garden, the walks over the craters and hills of the Banks Peninsula.
For the active: The fly-fishing in the clear rivers of Canterbury, the championship golf on the region’s courses, the bike rides with the lodge’s loan bicycles through the gentle hills.
For mountain lovers: The helicopter flight straight from the Great Lawn into the Southern Alps, the heli-skiing in winter, the glacier outing and the gourmet picnic on a lonely summit.
For culture travellers: The Christchurch risen anew after the earthquakes with cathedral and Cardboard Cathedral, the street-art quarter, the French heritage of Akaroa with its street names.
For rail lovers: The journey on the TranzAlpine over Arthur’s Pass to the wild west coast, one of the world’s great rail routes, through gorges and over viaducts.
For stargazers: The observatory at Lake Tekapo in the dark-sky reserve, the night sky over the plain, the silence of the Southern Alps far from any city.
For those after calm: The spa pool with its view over the plain, the library with books, board games and jigsaw puzzles, the long walks through wood and garden in the evening.
Details
- 7 suites, each with original fireplace and stained glass; the largest: Rhodes Suite (4 rooms, octagonal sitting room, balcony), Verandah Suite (9 m terrace), plus The Loft, Botanical, Clark, Jockey Jones, Polo.
- Farm-to-table cuisine, executive chef Jimmy McIntyre, four-course menu; wine cellar with ~700 NZ wines; dinner also for outside guests.
- Spa pool, seasonal outdoor pool, 30 acres of gardens (garden of national significance), loan bicycles.
- Relais & Châteaux, two MICHELIN Keys; all-inclusive (dinner, breakfast, canapés, beverages, laundry, garden tour).
- New Zealand’s largest private historic residence (1895, Queen Anne, Category 1 listed); children under 12 only with exclusive booking.
- Located in Tai Tapu, Banks Peninsula; about 25 minutes from Christchurch.
