Twenty years ago Matakana was little more than a dairy-pub-and-church blip on the road north. Now Aucklanders flock there at weekends, vying for a carpark and, liking what they see, fork out eye-watering amounts for a slice of stylish rural lifestyle. Jane Phare looks at why Matakana has exploded in popularity.
Back in 2002, property developer and vineyard owner Richard Didsbury and his wife Christine took a build-it-and-they-will-come punt. Down by the overgrown edge of the Matakana River and waterfall was a collection of derelict sheds, the remnants of an old saw mill. Why not buy the site and transform it into a farmers' market, they thought, help to make sleepy Matakana a destination?
So they did. They held meetings with local produce growers in their home at Brick Bay vineyard - and now a sculpture park - consulted with foodie and Ōmaha local Lauraine Jacobs, and then set to work creating a circular space that would become a dedicated marketplace.
With a nod to the remnants of timber merchant John Haydn's saw mill, established on the site in the 1850s, locally milled macrocarpa was used to build seating benches and steps down to the river's edge. Wine barrels were sourced from local vineyards in the area, and striped awnings hung to make it clear this was not just another weekend market in a car park.
The farmers' market would showcase only local produce – fruit and vegetables, cheese, olive oil, handcrafted bread, salami and the like. The produce must be local – not bought at Turners & Growers - although the couple now allow an Italian maker of hand-made pasta from Whangārei to join in because they can't source that locally.
The Matakana Village Farmers' Market opened on Labour weekend in 2003 with the Didsburys anxiously watching to see if anyone other than a few locals would come. But come they did, roaring up the motorway from Auckland in their SUVs, clogging Matakana's tiny roundabout and gobbling up carparks.
"Within three or four Saturdays we were having traffic jams," Richard Didsbury recalls. In his words, the market was "spectacularly successful".
As its popularity grew, locals knew to nip in early for their home-cured bacon and heirloom potatoes before the hoards arrived from the city. Film crews and food writers came from all over the world to look, taste and marvel.
And Aucklanders who had traditionally bought holiday homes in places like the Bay of Islands, Taupō, Whangamatā and Pauanui started to take notice. It was the sheer level of that unexpected success that gave Richard Didsbury the courage to embark on the second stage, engaging award-winning architect Noel Lane to help.
Lane had worked with the couple before, designing both their home and commercial developments for Kiwi Property, of which Didsbury was a co-founder with property investor Ross Green. Think Sylvia Park shopping centre, Auckland's stylish Vero Centre and the ASB Bank in Wynyard Quarter.
The result was a stylish development at Matakana that included a restaurant, retail shops and an arthouse cinema complex with a curved twin-domed copper roof that would become a destination in itself. The three theatres each has a distinctive style - 30,000 paper roses on the ceiling of Paradiso, the Roxy has dreamy, floor-to-ceiling draped fabrics, and the Tivoli boasts an 800kg chandelier. The cinema's large foyer lounge features carpets designed by artist Richard Killeen, a fireplace, elegant seating and stained-glass windows created by local glass artist Stephanie Mann.
The cinema and retail complex opened in 2007 and although some of the small retail shops have changed in the past 15 years, none of them is empty. They're an eclectic mix including an artisan chocolate maker, a coffee roaster and cafe, an art gallery, a book store, a shoe shop, a beauty outlet, and a store specialising in contemporary Māori art, fashion and design.
To the visitor, this varied array of owner-operator shops appears like a happy accident but the mix is in fact tightly controlled by the Didsburys. You won't see a Zara, Starbucks or Chemist Warehouse in the village centre, not on their watch.
Richard Didsbury, sometimes nicknamed the Mayor of Matakana, may well have developed Sylvia Park shopping centre but that doesn't mean he wants chain stores anywhere near the village. Retailers are vetted to retain the right mix and they can't on- sell their business to just anyone. (The Didsburys even own the Four Square across the road, now being expanded to meet increased demand.)
You won't go into a Didsbury-controlled retail space in Matakana and find a bored shop worker behind the counter on their mobile phone. Instead, he says, visitors can talk directly to the owner and farmers' market producers, an entirely different experience to a city mall.
He thinks Matakana is proof that there is life after online shopping and that local producers and retailers can thrive if the location is right. He hopes the village's success can be used as an example to show other small towns and communities what can be achieved, that big-box retail isn't always needed to attract the punters.
"If we're going to fight with internet shopping you need to have a good experience."
Long gone is the sleepy hollow
But not all locals are happy with what's been described as the "Matakana phenomenon". Some mourn the loss of their sleepy hollow and quiet country back roads. "Remuera tractors" morphed into "Matakana tractors" as shiny, late-model Range Rovers cruised through town, looked on by a stern George V at the Matakana War Memorial. The statue has been there since1920, back when the steamer SS Kotiti was needed to transport fresh produce from Auckland up the Matakana River.
Of the village's transformation, travel guide Lonely Planet wrote: "Now the locals watch bemused as Auckland's chattering classes idle away the hours in stylish wine bars and cafes."
And those chattering classes have been busy buying property in the area, ranging from bare subdivision sections up to multimillion-dollar estates, hiking up prices at a startling rate.
As Aucklanders realised they could work from home and then commute to the city if need be – the new Puhoi-to-Warkworth motorway link will make that journey even quicker - land that once hosted cows and horses filled with houses. As young professionals and families moved north for a healthier, less stressful lifestyle, Matakana School introduced a school zone in an effort to control numbers.
Bayleys real estate agent Kellie Bissett moved from Auckland's Remuera to Point Wells, a 10-minute drive from Matakana village, in 2009. The subdivision she and her husband signed up for had cows grazing in the paddock when they first visited. Existing homes were mostly populated by retired couples.
Now there's no sign of livestock, the paddocks consumed by new subdivisions and lavish homes. For families moving into the area, a new 250sq m to 320sq m home on a 1000sq m section is selling for between $2.4 million and $3.3m, Bissett says.
"Three million dollars up here might sound like a lot of money for a home but not if you're coming out of a draughty old villa on 400 square metres in Grey Lynn."
Bare lifestyle blocks in the area, between one and two hectares, were selling for $450,000 to $550,000 in 2014, she says. Now they're fetching between $1.2m and $2.2m. Residential sections – 800sqm to 900sq m - in Matakana were selling for between $350,000 and $370,000 back then and are now selling for $800,000 to $990,000.
Beachfront carries even more of a premium. Properties at Ōmaha have changed hands for between $8m and $10m in recent times, and this year a waterfront property at Point Wells sold for $5.8m. Two properties at Ti Point sold for $7.6m and $10m in the past year.
Lifestyle properties at the exclusive and still-unsealed Jones Rd, near Ōmaha, sell for between $4m and $8m. Four years ago broadcasters Mike Hosking and Kate Hawkesby bought a 5.5ha property near Matakana for $4.5m.
Former British TV presenter and quiz show host Noel Edmonds and his wife, Liz Davies, bought a five-bedroom English country-style home on an 11.86ha estate for $6.1m last year, which featured a pool and spa, rolling lawns and a five-car garage.
The couple added a helipad, a lake and a barn for staff accommodation to the property.
During New Zealand's lockdowns the couple set up an online community radio station called Positivity Radio, aimed at helping local communities and businesses.
Bissett, who was a police officer for 17 years before joining Bayleys, says she's witnessed property prices increase by 100 per cent on average over the past five years. And she's sold the same property a second time, 12 months later, for double the price.
Bissett has the plan of the original 1960s Mathesons Bay subdivision, about 10 minutes' drive from Matakana village. The most expensive sites sold for £1000 back then and, in January this year, she sold a little 1960s bach for $3m.
Miles away from ram raids
Apart from the lifestyle, one of the main attractions locals mention is safety. They watch in horror at Auckland's constant ram raids and random violence from a reassuring 75-minute drive away. It's the sort of place where clusters of kids leave their bikes on the grass verge when they get on the Matakana School bus, and the bikes are still there at 3pm ready for them to ride home.
About the worst crime that happens is the multiple beheading of George V, carved out of Ōamaru stone to commemorate 13 local young men who died in World War I and, later, six who died in WWII.
It was the Rodney region's many attractions - beautiful beaches, golf courses, regional parks like Tāwharanui, snorkelling at Goat Island and plenty of vineyards - that first made the Didsburys focus on Matakana village. It didn't really have a heart, they say; there was no real reason to go there other than to buy an ice cream at the local dairy or to the pub.
So why would an already successful multi-millionaire Auckland property developer bother with a farmers' market at Matakana in the first place? Didsbury, sipping a coffee in Brick Bay's Glass House Restaurant, gives a good-question grin. He thinks it might sound a bit trite but, he says, he and Christine wanted to give something back.
They've owned their 65ha farm at nearby Snells Beach, stretching down to Kawau Bay, for 35 years, commuting between their Auckland home and Brick Bay but inevitably spending increasing amounts of time at the farm. In the early days they had an unsuccessful stab at developing a goat stud but quickly decided to plant grapes instead.
"There's a limit to how many goat sausages you can eat but there is an unlimited number of bottles of wine you can give away to your friends," he jokes.
It was the Didsburys interest in wine that eventually led to the idea of the farmers' market. During trips to Europe the couple were drawn to other wine-growing regions and were inspired by the farmers' markets they visited in villages. And they were impressed by Arrowtown's village atmosphere and stylish Dorothy Brown cinema during visits to a daughter who lived there. Why wouldn't that work in Matakana, they wondered.
Richard Didsbury was chuffed to meet a couple this month at the farmers' market who had driven down from Whangārei in their campervan to see the movie Whina. They planned to freedom camp by the beach at Mathesons Bay before returning home.
Visitors are unlikely to see B-grade blockbusters at Matakana, more likely film festival movies. The cinema has gathered a following from locals who come along to screenings of New York's Metropolitan Opera performances and of plays by London's National Theatre.
At nearby Brick Bay, an arts manager curates the Didsbury sculpture park. For a small entry fee visitors can wander through farm trails and bush to view 65 sculptures by New Zealand artists that will one day be hidden in private estates and gardens.
The sculptures are impressive and some have price tags to match: Gregor Kregar's Reflective Habitat is $85,000; Rohan Wealleans' Psychosis Chamber of the Oracle is $60,000; Leon Van Den Eijkel's The Geometric Totem is $90,000; Virginia King's Phantom Fleet Vessel is $68,000; and Terry Stringer's Benediction is $25,000, although there are considerably cheaper sculptures also on display.
Not far away is Sculptureum, a 10ha manicured garden filled with more than 650 pieces of sculpture and art collected over the years by Auckland-based lawyers Anthony and Sandra Grant. It's spread across three gardens and six art galleries. It's part of the Grants' private collection and nothing is for sale.
A victim of its success
Didsbury acknowledges that in some ways Matakana may have been too successful, with development forging ahead of infrastructure. But he says that's something Auckland Council is aware of and is no different from other rapidly developing areas.
And there's no sign of visitor numbers slowing. Former champion marathon runner and mountain biker Allison Roe, who lives at Point Wells, is behind the Matakana Coast Trail Trust which has an ambitious plan of creating a 250km walking/cycling/horse riding trail from Puhoi, through Matakana to Mahurangi, and on to Northland. The trust anticipates that the trail will eventually attract 750,000 people a year to the area - which is already short of accommodation - including international cyclists.
So what of Matakana's future and the Didsbury succession plan. What's to stop someone, in the future, from building apartment blocks on the quaint riverside farmers' market site and a McDonald's on the street above?
It's a question over which both Christine and Didsbury hesitate. Right now, it all works. They keep an eye on things while their daughter Anna runs Brick Bay winery and sculpture trail, and her husband Dan Paine runs the Matakana Cinema and manages some of the retail property.
"It is something we worry about," Richard Didsbury says. "We wouldn't want it to eventually be sold to someone who didn't put the same value into it as we have."
They're optimistic the family will continue to own the Matakana assets.
" We'd like to make it available to them. It's a family issue and we've got our fingers crossed."