Setting pretty |
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Sleek, elegant, polished… Paula and Simon Herbert’s holiday home could be described as the perfect setting for a beauty queen. Which is precisely what it is.
The 410sqm lodge-like house in the exclusive Queenstown suburb of Dalefield is where the current Mrs New Zealand (Paula) and her lawyer-turned-investor husband go to ski, hike, drink wine, cook, swim and play with their family and friends.
Most of the year, the Herberts live a high-octane life in Auckland. They manage large-scale property investment projects, including the Bayswater marina and Rarotongan Hilton, are launching a couple of new fashion labels and attend constant rounds of A-list parties.
Paula says she didn’t realise there was a pageant for married women until she was tapped on the shoulder by pageant organiser Adelaide Tucker at the Boxing Day races. It’s easy to see why she was singled out: Paula, 31, is olive-skinned, blonde and beautiful. On the day of the races she was wearing a cream Philip Lim dress and an outrageous pair of black Louis Vuitton heels.
Incredibly, Paula once described herself as being “painfully shy”. And so – employing an “if it hurts, it’s got to be good for you” philosophy – she decided she should take up Adelaide’s challenge. She had done some modelling as a teenager, but competing against 90 other women through the Mrs World pageant’s interviews and swimsuit modelling sections was, she says, way outside her comfort zone.
“I just kept thinking, if I do this, it will help me create a platform to be able to help the charities I really believe in.”
The Mrs New Zealand win, when it came, was a blast and has helped to raise her profile, which means escaping to the Queenstown house, which was finished just a few months before the win, has become even more important. The couple get down to Queenstown often – it takes only an hour and a half on a direct flight from Auckland – and estimate they spend roughly half their time there.
“You just walk in and feel instantly relaxed… It is the same for everyone,” says Paula. “There’s nothing precious about the place at all.”
The couple’s vision for their second home was of a place where they could entertain Simon’s four children (Lucy, 20, Sophia, 18, Zoe, 15, and Sam, eight), their extended family members, business friends and friends from the celebrity circuit… sometimes all at once.
At their wedding at Huka Lodge two years ago, they had admired the central entertaining area and separate suites of the Owner’s Cottage and decided it would work for them: “We wanted people to be able to retire, relax on the sofa in front of the fire with a book or watch a movie on TV – all in their own living space in their own room, then join up with the others for drinks later,” says Paula.
Inspired by this vision, they got cracking. No agonising amateur process of trial and error here: Simon and Paula are a well-oiled team.They already owned the land – a tract of prime land they had bought years ago as an investment, overlooking an established English-style garden, which they retained.
Then Simon, 46, who does a lot of design and construction work on his property projects, sat down and drew up a plan to scale. “He’s good at that sort of mathematical stuff,” says Paula. A local draughtsman was hired to do the plans and local builder Mark Tutty (the Herberts say he and his team are highly recommended) to do the construction. Paula, who once owned a home-staging company and specialised in interior design, asked Christchurch designer Susie Paynter to help her with the furnishings.
Paula loves black and white and decided that would be the main colour scheme, but to bring the barren drama of the Otago landscape inside she wanted to add the odd splash of tan. With Susie, she worked out what furniture they’d need and had it custom-made in large sizes to fill the generous living spaces. Susie shopped for fabrics and accessories and presented them to Paula and Simon to make the final choices.
By July last year – a bit more than a year after they made their initial plans – the house was finished and Paula and Simon moved in for six weeks to enjoy their new home.
The couple’s Queenstown routine varies according to who is staying: they might ski, or do the 90-minute walk around Lake Hayes, or go to the movies in Queenstown, doze off in the loungers on the verandah or drive to enjoy the postcard scenery down the road: Lake Wanaka, the Remarkables, Cardrona. Cliff Loftin, an American business partner in their clothing venture, was so taken with the setting, he took his laptop for a tour around the garden while speaking to family and friends back home in America on Skype, so he could show off the spectacular environment he was staying in.
 Meals are simple and relaxed. Paula does salads; Simon makes linguine with capers and prawns. Guests sit around the island bench in the spacious kitchen, with its large fridge filled top to bottom with the best local wine. To keep the bench uncluttered, Paula often slips away to cook in the sizeable butler’s pantry, with its own full kitchen. “It’s a great space,” says Paula. “Simon and I can cook together, make a mess, close the door and entertain.”
For web-exclusive images click on the "photo gallery" link above
Story: Sam Davison & Sally Duggan
Photographs: Paul McCredie
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