Couple give $10m property to the nation

Jackie and Pierre Chatelanat at Atiu Creek Farm which they have given to the Auckland Regional Council

The quiet foreigner who for 50 years has been known by Wellsford residents as just "Pierre" has given his Kaipara Harbour farm to the nation.

The 843ha farm - valued at more than $10 million - will become the 23rd Auckland Regional Park. It is the largest gift of land in the Auckland region since Sir John Logan Campbell donated Cornwall Park to the city in 1901.

Swiss-born Pierre Chatelanat and his wife, Jacqueline, decided that gifting the property as a regional park in perpetuity was the best way to preserve and protect a property they loved.

It is also protected by a Queen Elizabeth II Trust open space covenant.

The Tapora Peninsula property, 100km north of Auckland, has sweeping views over the harbour, and bush, wetlands and sandy beaches.

But when Mr Chatelanat first saw his farm in the early 1950s, it was a wilderness of teatree and gorse.

The couple, who are in their mid-70s, declined media interviews yesterday.

Long-time neighbour, farmer Eric Avenall, recalled when Mr Chatelanat was a shy bachelor living in a caravan, with a labourer helping him to break in the scrub for pasture.

"He came up to the house sometimes for morning tea - my wife was a great cook.

"The land had been owned by the Government but they sold it to Pierre I think because it was a bit too tough to give to returned servicemen to farm. But when they saw what he did to it they wanted it."

The former Lands and Survey Department bought 4000ha from Mr Chatelanat for a resettlement scheme, leaving him with a homestead and the still sizeable Atiu Creek Farm.

After 11 years, Mr Chatelanat left the farm with a manager and returned overseas to be a volunteer adviser for the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

He met his wife at the FAO headquarters in Rome and they retired to the farm in 1998. They have no children and live quietly in a house they built on a secluded part of the farm.

They enjoy trips to Auckland for the opera and drive an unpretentious Toyota car into Wellsford for fortnightly shopping trips.

A spokesman for the couple, Robbie Gimblett, of PricewaterhouseCoopers, said they were New Zealand residents whose farm "has been a lifetime project".

"They are passionate about the environment and the Kaipara Harbour. They cannot believe that anyone could think of building a power station on the Kaipara."

ARC chairman Mike Lee called the gift "a vision of generosity on a heroic scale".

ARC parks chairman Sandra Coney said a Kaipara park had been on the council's wish list for many years but the harbourside land seemed to be "all locked up".

The property would become part of the council's extensive farming operations and after some development would be be formally opened to the public in 2011.

It would be available for camping.