Family's dream gives Huntly an unexpected new industry

By ELIZABETH BINNING

When the Graham family started talking about building a nature resort on a hillside at Huntly, reactions ranged from scepticism to outright laughter.

The Waikato town, better known for coalmining, scruffy streets and a landscape dominated by the two chimneys of a power station, has never been a tourist destination.

The Grahams knew that most people drive straight through Huntly without looking back.

But now, with construction of their resort nearly complete, the family hope Huntly (population 7000) will be a place where people will want to stay and pay for the luxury on offer.

The multilevel hotel, which opens next week, has 360-degree views stretching as far as Mt Ruapehu, and is nestled amid native bush on a hilltop at the southern end of the town.

The hotel idea was born a decade ago while Fraser Graham was admiring the view from a ridge on the 930ha station he and his wife, Meryl, had bought four years before.

The couple, both in their 70s, wanted to restore the native bush and improve the station's pasture.

They also wanted to give something positive back to Huntly.

"I was looking at the area we wanted to conserve and thought, what was the point of conserving it if nobody would see it," says Mr Graham.

So the couple and their daughter and son, Rosemary Leader and Craig Graham, started discussing the idea of a resort where visitors could take guided nature tours, experience real farming and get back to basics.

The family were aware of the town's reputation, but felt there was more to it than most people knew.

They wanted to promote the reserves, kauri groves, lakes and rivers - features that many families, especially those from cities, do not have easy access to.

The Grahams talked to friends, family and locals.

"The locals were, 'Oh well, we have heard grand schemes before but they never seem to happen. Good luck to you anyway'," says Fraser Graham.

Now Huntly people, some of whom have been been employed as staff and contractors, are embracing the hotel's potential.

Mayor Peter Harris says the luxury hotel, which has a function room and gourmet restaurant, will go a long way towards improving the town's dull image.

"We think it's quite a fabulous idea because we are trying to encourage people to do things.

"It's a town with an ideal situation - strategically we are ideally placed. We just need entrepreneurial people like [the Grahams] to do things for us."

The hotel, designed and decorated by Mrs Graham and built partly from timber milled from station trees, has cost about $2 million.

Now the family are confident it will attract local and overseas tourists.

"People are tending to live in smaller and smaller areas," says Mrs Graham.

"If they have got a family, the resort is a nice place to bring the children and let them run wild."

Mrs Leader, who will run the hotel with her husband, Rod, describes it as a "chill-out sort of place - bushwalks with champagne breakfast".

Visitors will be able to see some of the country's biggest kahikatea trees, rare eels and the native kokopu (whitebait).

Those interested in pioneer farming can saddle up to tour the station, where quarter horses are still preferred to farmbikes.

There are even plans for an equestrian centre to host the region's annual rodeo.

Mrs Leader says the function room is already being booked by local companies.