The high country station that could be yours, for $50 million

Mt Algidus Station. Photo: Sotheby's / supplied
Mt Algidus Station. Photo: Sotheby's / supplied
By Katie Todd of RNZ

One of the country's most storied high-country stations is on the market.

Offers of $50 million or more are being sought for Mt Algidus Station, a 22,120-hectare property in the Southern Alps.

Author Mona Anderson lived on the property for 33 years, and detailed her time there in the book A River Rules My Life.

The station - secluded at the confluence of the Wilberforce, Rakaia and Mathias rivers near Canterbury's Lake Coleridge - was also home to politician William Rolleston in the 1860s.

Sotheby's International Realty sales associate Matt Finnigan said the vendors, who had lived there for two decades, had added a four-bedroom residence with living areas, a library, drawing room, office and pool cabana, as well as a two-bedroom flat.

The property also included a three-bedroom farmhouse for guest accommodation - with an additional out-house bedroom and standalone bedsit, along with a woolshed and sheep yards, the old shearers' quarters and other dwellings.

Mt Algidus Station. Photo: Sotheby's / supplied
Mt Algidus Station. Photo: Sotheby's / supplied
"You very seldom find high country farms that have had this level of capital investment in terms of infrastructure and staff housing and industry farming improvements," Finnigan said.

Sotheby's was marketing the property domestically and internationally with an advertising campaign in The New York Times.

New Zealand buyers were still the primary audience, Finnigan said.

"If you look at the last seven years or so, [Overseas Investment Office] applications have been almost non-existent for such properties. What we have realised is actually there's a large expat database there. You just need to look at our sales for that period - they've all been Kiwi or resident buyers.

Mt Algidus Station. Photo: Sotheby's / supplied
Mt Algidus Station. Photo: Sotheby's / supplied
"So advertising offshore, as we do with all our good real estate, captures that audience."

The station was a working high-country farm with high stock units and a small permanent staff, Finnigan said. But he expected prospective buyers would be attracted by its history and lifestyle opportunities.