About $6m needed to buy billionaire’s house

American billionaire Peter Thiel’s Queenstown Hill house, expected to sell for about $6million...
American billionaire Peter Thiel’s Queenstown Hill house, expected to sell for about $6million.PHOTO: GUY WILLIAMS
For just over $6million, you could buy one of Queenstown Hill’s most famous houses.

The ‘‘plasma house’’, named for its 15m-wide landscape window, has just been listed with Auckland’s Wall Real Estate, which brokered its sale to American technology billionaire Peter Thiel 10 years ago.

Peter Thiel was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2011. Photo: Getty Images
Peter Thiel. Photo: Getty Images
Mr Thiel’s company, Second Star Ltd, paid $4.8million for the five-bedroom Edinburgh Dr home, which sits atop a schist outcrop.

Although countless Queenstown properties had at least doubled in price since 2011, Wall Real Estate’s Ollie Wall was not sure that would apply in this case.

‘‘We expect a little over $6million for it,’’ he said.

‘‘It comes down to [the vendor] being realistic. They’re not just trying to make a whole lot of money out of it.’’

The vendor was selling because they lived overseas and it was not quite as easy to just ‘‘pop down whenever you please’’.

The house was built in about 2005, but the interior was ‘‘essentially brand new’’ following structural repairs after a fire five years ago.

The house was built for former Queenstown developer Rod Nielsen, designed by resort architect Marc Scaife and built by Naylor Love, which craned in 375kg window panes from the road below.

Mr Scaife said the house was ‘‘quite an amazing feat of engineering’’.

‘‘It is a little bit austere, perhaps, being such a very strong form, but that’s what Rod wanted.

‘‘He wanted it to be this eye-catching piece of modern sculpture.’’

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