AusLeisure

Queenstown’s award-winning Millbrook Resort has announced a $45 million expansion that will see it develop a neighbouring farm into a new golf course interspersed with high-end residential homes.

The development, expected to start early next year, will add nine holes to its existing 27 golf course - becoming only New Zealand resort offering two 18-hole courses.

The expansion arises after the resort bought 67-hectare Dalgleish Farm, west of its Coronet Nine course, in 2014.

With Millbrook’s Japanese owners having gained New Zealand Overseas Investment Office approval, for the development, Queenstown Lakes Council approved an extension to the Millbrook Resort Zone, subject to appeals, in October.

That appeal is expected to be resolved in the near future.

Like the Coronet Nine, which opened in 2010, the extra nine holes have been designed by Arrowtown-based ex-golf pro Greg Turner and his Scotland-based associate Scott Macpherson.

Much of the new nine golf holes will occupy “perhaps the most spectacular landscape at Millbrook”, according to Director of Golf Brian Spicer says.

More than 20 hectares will be retained as working farm-land, while the historic woolshed will be rebuilt and relocated to a paddock by Malaghans Road.

Parts of Mill Stream, which also runs through the Coronet Nine, will be widened, and an 1860s farmhouse will be kept and added to.

Property and development manager Ben O’Malley says the development will retain an agrarian style, thanks to the rustic open farm areas scattered around the course.

The upper plateau will host 24 home sites and the lower slopes a further 18.

Going by nearby Millbrook sales, O’Malley expects sections to fetch at least $1.5 million, stating “as one of the largest employers in the region, this new development will ensure that Millbrook Resort continues to make a very significant contribution to the local and national economy.”

Parts of Mill Stream will be widened to create larger waterways, and other areas will be retained as over 20 hectares of working farmland, featuring common grazing land and an historic woolshed that will be rebuilt and relocated to a paddock adjoining Malaghans Road.

The original 1860s farmhouse will be retained with some sympathetic additions, and an existing visible irrigation pipe, part of the Arrow Irrigation Company network, will be relocated and buried underground. An irrigation reservoir and pumphouses will also be built on site.

Site clearance is scheduled to start in early 2018, including a raft of ecological and landscape enhancements. Once the new golf course is constructed and ‘grown-in’ the aim is for it to be open for play over the summer of 2021/22.

Images courtesy of Millbrook Resort.

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