Rural Retreat

A hard-working couple couldn’t find the sort of sanctuary they needed for rest and rejuvenation so they built their own.

Words: Bette Flagler  Photographs: Kevin Emirali

Rocky Cutting Road isn’t tar sealed. It leads to the Welcome Bay home of Penny Oxnam and Joanne O’Keeffe who are happy with its roughness. It makes their place feel more remote, they say. The couple’s Ridge Country Retreat sits on 14 hectares of native and regenerating bush in the hills above the bay. Edged by a steep limestone gorge, its views are iconic Bay of Plenty: the sea, Mount Maunganui and the lights of Tauranga at night. Though just 10 minutes from New Zealand’s fastest-growing city, it feels days away from roundabouts and supermarket queues.

The site hasn’t always been a getaway for corporate team building or travellers in need of pampering. Before they built the lodge, Joanne (Jo) and Penny used the property to camp, to watch the ocean swallow the sun and drink wine. "The best decisions we’ve made were after a bottle of red," says Penny. "We’d relax and make some notes …"

After realizing how rejuvenated they felt after even the briefest visit to their hilltop, they started to make notes on how to build a sanctuary for friends and others who needed a break. They didn’t want a stuffy, posh lodge. Yes, they wanted superb hospitality and glorious food but they also wanted guests to feel comfortable wandering around in bathrobes and putting their feet on the sofa. "When we were working," says Penny, "we looked for this place but it didn’t exist."

Jarva and Jake, the colour-point Persians, wander freely through the lounge: stately, expectant. Theirs is the only arrogance to be found but even so they seem more laid-back than the average fickle feline as they curl up on a welcoming lap. Guests are encouraged to play the guitars and keyboard in the library and may even, when the occasion warrants and the wine has been flowing, find themselves joining in when Jo puts on the CD she compiled and named My Favourite Sing-Alongs for After a Few Drinks (you know, songs like Petula Clark’s Downtown).

The seed for Ridge Country Retreat took its time germinating but when it did it grew with Jack-and-the-Beanstalk enthusiasm. The effusive Jo stands on the deck outside the floor-to-ceiling lounge windows, rolls a smoke, and says, "We wanted to build a comfortable bed-and-breakfast, a little getaway." A little getaway? "Okay," she admits, "it got a little out of control." No kidding. The plan morphed into a more-than-1000sqm lodge with a lap pool, day spa and inked plans to build six more units and a conference centre. "People look at this and think we must be wealthy. But we’re not," says Jo, "we had a dream and we’ve mortgaged ourselves to the eyeballs to make it happen."

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