Inside Cuisine magazine pioneer’s Waiheke beach bach with $9.3m CV

The property for sale on Waiheke. Photo / OneRoof

A galley-style kitchen with a freestanding unit topped by a stone bench overlooks the dining and casual seating area facing one of Waiheke Island’s best beaches.

Inside the Palm Beach holiday home of Cuisine magazine pioneer Julie Dalzell, a tall feature tap dominates the benchtop working area.

Sliding doors open to al fresco dining, the lawn - and then that beach.

The upmarket bach is owned by one-time Cuisine owner Dalzell, previously with the late John Fay. Wall Real Estate is advertising the property at 43 Palm Rd.

Dalzell said the couple had owned it for 27 years and it was a very different place now compared with when they bought it. The house was originally a small fibrolite bach.

“We went through a couple of stages and it was a good fun project - or projects,” she said of extensions, renovations and refurbishments.

Relaxed living/kitchen/dining at the Palm Rd bach. Photo / OneRoof

Advertising describes the place as a stylish and relaxed five-bedroom home on a 1700sq m double section, “absolute beachfront yet set back with a long olive tree-lined lawn for complete privacy..”

Auckland Council has a $9.3m valuation on the property, of which $8.5m is land and the rest is the house value. The site is 1703sq m and the house 191sq m. Annual rates are $17,565.

The site is just over 1700sq m - and this is Palm Beach. Photo / OneRoof

Fay was a swimming pool entrepreneur and a co-owner of Newmarket’s Olympic Pools and the inner-city Tepid Baths. He died on September 30, although the family had already decided to sell their beachfront escape.

“I just go quietly, quietly with all this,” Dalzell said of the house sale and its timing.

The kitchen of Cuisine magazine's founders. Photo / OneRoof

Cuisine has been described as the first New Zealand magazine devoted to food and wine, started by Hamish Allison, then brought by Dalzell in 1986. She sold it to Independent Newspapers around 2002.

John Fay was the brother of Sir Michael Fay, formerly of Fay, Richwhite.

John Fay’s LinkedIn profile says he had more than 30 years experience of owning, operating and developing a wide variety of businesses, from health and fitness facilities to hospitality and restaurant reviewing. He had been running five businesses, operating worldwide.

The front yard of the bach for sale. Photo / OneRoof

He was a director of The Phantom Swimmer, consulting to pools and fitness centres; owner of Kiwi Offshore Pools, which installs swimming pools in bodies of water not usually safe or suitable for swimming; and developer and owner of The Olympic in New Zealand, which he co-founded and had been directing for almost 20 years.

John Fay - known to friends as Johnny - also cited his co-ownership of Cuisine magazine for 18 years.

He owned and redeveloped the Tepid Baths from 1985 to 1995.

When Cuisine was sold to INL, Dalzell said there had been considerable interest in the title over the years.

“It’s my baby and when you’ve worked with your own baby for 17 years, you don’t just throw it away,’’ she said.

When it was sold around 2002, the bi-monthly magazine had a circulation of 88,000.

Bedroom with a view - inside the Waiheke home. Photo / OneRoof

Cuisine was published by Cuisine Publication, a privately-owned New Zealand company which was established by Dalzell in 1986. Back then, she said, the recipes were considered exotic and she had to explain how to pronounce Sauvignon Blanc. She credited the magazine’s success to its creative and forward-looking nature and to the territory it occupies.

“Kiwis love food and wine,” she said when she sold the publication.