Russian steel billionaire Alexander Abramov has a $50 million ($38 million US) estate in New Zealand at Helena Bay which is reportedly going to also be used as a luxury resort. He gave Anne Gibson of the New Zealand Herald a tour of the property.
The estate includes four colonial style houses with more than 30, 000 square feet of total floor space on a third of a hectare of land. They all sit above the ocean front and have grey asphalt roof tiles. There is also a four bedroom hilltop guest house about half a mile from the main mansion.
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The property is covered in intricate Italian marble is awesome, including gas-ignited marble-faced wood fireplaces. An 85 foot long courtyard pool has a mosaic finish.
The main u shaped house has 25, 000 square feet of floor space and comes with a “mini-city” underneath it for staff that features with rooms within rooms, hidden corridors running the length of the main swimming pool, ducting, pipes and underground corridors ensuring the main residence’s comfort levels of air handling, fire safety, IT, kitchen services, heating and cooling are top-notch.
To build the main house it took a tower crane and a crawler crane working together for several years. Some of the construction crews reportedly worked on it for as much as five years and at least seven different new workers were said to have performed their entire apprenticeships on this project alone.
The main gateway to the estate is covered in Portland’s Paradise Stone and is several miles away from the houses. It takes a winding routes along many flowers, streams, waterfalls and new lakes where endangered species will be housed.
Extensive predator control measures, including trapping and poisoning possums, weasels and stoats, have nurtured natives like pohutukawa and 240, 000 new plants are now on this private estate.
The estate even comes with its own mini power station.
It was developed by Helena Bay Holdings managing director Christopher Seel, who said it would open next summer. “The jewel in the crown is the amount of detail and it’s the choice of the owner, ” Mr Seel told the Herald.
“We look forward to joining the well-established and highly awarded luxury lodge sector and we hope to offer a unique experience, not commonly provided or seldom found in a single lodge, spanning beach, farming, fishing, ecology, environmental, historical and archaeological elements, ” Mr Seel added.
