KEY POINTS:
Multimillionaire jeweller Michael Hill is planning 17 "bunker" homes on his golf course estate bordering Arrowtown.
The luxury pads will be largely underground.
He is applying for resource consent on the ground-breaking subdivision around his new international golf course, which will host the next three New Zealand Opens.
Hill claims his subdivision will "set a new benchmark for development in this district and I am sure will get international recognition".
He estimates about 80 per cent of each single-level residence will be underground, with the roofs covered in turf, pebbles or tussock.
The dugout development follows the theme of the golf course's subterranean clubhouse, the roof of which can be played on if a golfer strays while approaching the 18th green.
"My brief to [the architect] was I would not want to see the houses, but sort of stumble on them when going for a walk with the dog."
The 367 to 700sq m homes will be tucked into the natural landscape's humps and hillocks.
Hill says the homes will still receive sun through artful placing of light shafts, and there will be room for barbecues under eaves, and small ponds - but no fences.
Six homes will be located within the golf course with the others away from it.
Hill says the idea for the subdivision - to be known, like the golf course, as The Hills - arose after his family forced him to consider an integrated plan for the entire 200ha property. He is aiming to make economic use of the former deer farm bought as a home in the early 90s.
Not that Hill is "paranoid" about making money from his property: "Or I'd have never built a golf course", says the jewellery mogul, whose fortune was put at $150 million by the National Business Review's Rich List last year.
Part of the plan is to give 5000sq m of land along his McDonnell Rd boundary as public reserve to extend Arrowtown's green belt. Hill will also plant 20,000 native trees to reinstate a beech forest.
He says his subdivision is a 10-year project, which he intends to start with a show home.
He has no idea what the homes will sell for, but concedes their construction cost - including schist faces above ground - won't be cheap.
Asked to price a semi-underground 700sq m home, a local project manager put it at a ballpark $2 million just to build it.
Michael Hill - Jeweller
* Michael Hill opened his first Michael Hill Jewellery shop in 1979, and in just eight years, there were 10 outlets which had been established throughout the country.
* In 1987 Hill won the Air New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year Award and launched his chain of jewellery stores in Australia.
* Hill is the sole member of his private Arrowtown course, and he has waived the six-figure venue fee for the New Zealand Opens.
