$10 million hotel-like mansion rising in rural Auckland

A grand mansion of almost hotel-like proportions is rising on Auckland's northern outskirts in a job so big that a commercial-grade tower crane is swinging above the site.

The 20-metre crane from Atlas Cranes Northland is on the site of the house, costing around $10 million, being built on a 24-hectare rural property at Coatesville.

In one of Auckland's most expensive residential construction jobs, award-winning PSL Construction is building the house, which has just more than a tenth of a hectare of floor space.

Phil Leach, PSL chief, said: "The crane is on the job to speed things up. There's been a lot of lifting. It's a very large home. We do believe it's the only home in New Zealand with a tower crane up.

"The home consists of about six bedrooms including a guest wing. We have a helipad and helicopter hangar out the back and also obviously a swimming pool which works quite nicely here as well.

"This home is approximately 1200sq m plus a [helicopter] hangar and garaging. We have a pretty large team here to get the project moving along. We're around 30 to 40 people a day. It's definitely the largest home we have built," said Leach, whose company has three times won the supreme Master Builder of the Award.

Chris Hunter of builders NZStrong described the house plans as "amazing. Great to see little old New Zealand getting this scale of residential investment."

Leach said 10,000 to 12,000 concrete blocks had been laid, around 400 truck-loads of concrete had been delivered, and the whitest concrete he had ever seen was created to create dramatic marble-like