Focus on our 50th: Walter Peak High Country Farm 1986 to 2022

A scenic cruise across Lake Whakatipu onboard the TSS Earnslaw to Walter Peak High Country Farm is a popular activity for visitors to Queenstown. For the Boffa Miskell team, the journey and shared lunch was a highlight of our 50th Anniversary celebrations in September.

For a few of the group – including Frank Boffa – it was also returning to a place of company history. Today, the historic white buildings of the Colonel’s Homestead are surrounded by gardens and a working farm; however, in the mid-80’s, a very different future was envisiged for the former Walter Peak Station.

ln 1986, Boffa Miskell was commissioned as part of a larger project team to prepare a Masterplan for the 154ha Tourist Resort Zone within Walter Peak Station on the shores of Lake Wakatipu. The design for the international destination resort was to include a major hotel, up to 800 condominiums, a village centre, an 18-hole international golf course, and associated recreational facilities. The overall development was to accommodate a population of around 4,000 people.

“Boffa Miskell’s role, having worked on a previous development proposal at Walter Peak in the early 1970’s, was to undertake a comprehensive landscape assessment of both the site and its context, as a basis to inform and assist with the site planning, design and landscape management of the development and its wider landscape setting,” says Frank.

As the 154ha site was specifically zoned for a Tourist Resort, the application documentation was to provide sufficient information to enable the Hearing Committee to make a decision on the Masterplan. The graphics were prepared by Steve Drakeford, a landscape architect from Boffa Miskell’s Wellington office who has now retired.

Frank recalls, “The hearing – which was held on site in the old homestead – was completed, with all conditions agreed and approval granted all in the same day.

However, the project was not implemented, due largely to the international stock market crash in the late 80’s, and high costs associated with infrastructure, services and access,” he continues.

“Notwithstanding this, some of the landscape design about the homestead area was implemented and continues to be a feature and focus for the current tourism activities associated with Walter Peak Station.”

Over 35 years later, all of Boffa Miskell returned to Walter Peak, and were greeted by the Wakatipu High School Kapa Haka Rōpū representing the Kāti Māmoe and Ngāi Tahu tangata whenua. Iwi hosts welcomed the Boffa Miskell whānau as manuhiri (visitors) to Tāhuna / Queenstown, Te Waipounamu.

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Focus on our 50th: Celebrations in Tāhuna | Queenstown