Otahuna Lodge, Christchurch: seven suites in a statesman’s 1895 homestead

Photo: Ralph Bestic / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Twenty-five minutes from central Christchurch, a turreted Queen Anne mansion built for Sir Heaton Rhodes now hosts guests in seven suites, with dinners drawn from its century-old kitchen gardens.

The setting

Otahuna was built in 1895 for Heaton Rhodes, a Canterbury politician who would be knighted four times and become known as “The Grand Old Man” of New Zealand public life. He and his wife, Jessie Cooper Clark, named the estate Otahuna, which they translated as “little hill among the hills”. The house became a fixture of Canterbury society, and in 1927 the couple hosted the Duke of York, later King George VI.

“The luxury is low-key, the atmosphere personal, and the connection to its heritage unmistakable.”

Today it is billed as New Zealand’s largest private historic residence, and it is listed as a Category 1 historic building. Inside, the Queen Anne mansion is layered with carved kauri, stained glass and open fires. The dining room is lined with rare, gilded Japanese leather paper (kinkarakami), a reminder of the Rhodes’ honeymoon in Japan, when they were among the first generation of Western tourists to collect art there.

The gardens are as much of a draw as the house. They were laid out under A.E. Lowe, who trained at Kew, with wide vistas of lawn and an ornamental lake in the English landscape style, and a series of garden “rooms” added behind the homestead in later decades. In the first half of the 20th century, Otahuna’s daffodil fields became nationally famous; surplus bulbs formed the nucleus of the daffodil gardens in Christchurch’s Hagley Park, and hundreds of thousands still flower each August and September.

The rooms & villas

Each of the seven suites is different, shaped by ornate fireplaces, carved inglenooks and generous bathrooms. The two Master Suites are the largest, with wood-burning fireplaces, broad outdoor terraces and views over the Great Lawn to the Southern Alps. The Rhodes Suite, once the master bedroom, is a series of four rooms; the Verandah Suite, historically kept for the most favoured guests, has a large private terrace.

The five Suites draw on the original homestead’s character, with New Zealand artworks and garden views. The Botanical Suite occupies the former Morning Room on the ground floor, with a gingerbread mantelpiece. The Clark Suite, named for Jessie, is the newest, and the Jockey Jones Suite has a bedroom, a separate living room and two bathrooms.

Eat & drink

Dinner is the centrepiece. A seasonal four-course chef’s menu changes nightly and draws on the estate itself: its potager gardens and orchards, a mushroom house and paddocks. Less than 100 metres from the house, a century-old vegetable garden, orchard, cutting garden and greenhouses keep the kitchen supplied with organic produce and the rooms with flowers year-round.

Overnight guests can dine fireside, in the wine cellar, in the library or tucked into the turret, with premium New Zealand wines matched to each course; pre-dinner drinks start at 6.30pm. Otahuna now also opens dinner to a handful of non-resident tables, though resident guests are always included. Cooking lessons with Executive Chef Jimmy McIntyre are reserved for those staying.

Wellness

Wellness here is gentle rather than clinical. Guests can book a 60- or 90-minute massage in the Woodland Massage Studio, set among century-old trees with views to the Port Hills. A heated swimming pool (26°C) opens from November to March, and a spa pool is available all year.

Beyond the resort

Christchurch is 20 to 25 minutes away by road. The lodge points guests to the city’s 52-acre Botanic Gardens, the Christchurch Art Gallery, the neo-Gothic Arts Centre and the Riverside Market, and to guided food tours that tell the story of the city’s recovery from the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. Closer to home, four complimentary bicycles cover the easy six-kilometre Otahuna Valley loop, with a Tai Tapu café or pub along the way, and specialist guides lead half- and full-day walks on the crater-rim trails of the Port Hills.

Further out, Akaroa is about an hour’s drive over the rim of an extinct volcano; in its harbour, guests can swim with Hector’s dolphins, the world’s smallest and rarest. The TranzAlpine train climbs into the Southern Alps to Arthur’s Pass National Park for a guided forest walk, and the lodge’s own helicopter itineraries reach the North Canterbury wineries, mountaintop landings in the Alps and the whales of Kaikōura.

When to go

Canterbury has four distinct seasons, and Christchurch is one of New Zealand’s drier, sunnier cities, with about 2,143 sunshine hours and 648mm of rain a year, according to ChristchurchNZ. Summer, from December to February, brings average daytime temperatures of about 20–25°C; autumn, from March to May, about 17–21°C; and winter, from June to August, about 12–16°C. Otahuna’s high season runs from Christmas to Easter, and the lodge advises booking guided activities such as the TranzAlpine, Akaroa yacht charters and its own cooking lessons weeks or even months ahead if you are travelling then without a car. The festive period, from 20 December to 5 January, carries its own cancellation terms. Spring and the weeks after Easter fall outside the peak.

Who it’s for

Otahuna suits travellers who value food, gardens and history over facilities, and who want to use Canterbury as a base: the TranzAlpine train and yacht charters on Akaroa Harbour are popular day trips. With only seven suites, it also works well as an exclusive-use house for celebrations or company gatherings.

Children under 12 can stay only with an exclusive-use booking. Those wanting a full spa or a remote wilderness setting should look elsewhere.

This guide was researched independently from published sources; Cosmopolitan Courier was not compensated.