46 Kahikatea Drive Poroti, Whangarei District

A friend's son was six when he first saw the walls of 46 Kahikatea Drive going up, and gasped, asking if they were building a castle. The owners hadn't thought of it that way before, but looking at the home today, solid and unmistakably its own thing, it's hard to see it any other way.

This is a stacked earth, adobe-in-situ home, and there is nothing else quite like it on the market. Every wall was poured, not framed. Every board was chosen. The result is a house with a presence most new builds never get close to: solid, quiet, and built to outlast trends entirely.

- Four bedrooms, two bathrooms, 277 sqm floor
- 3.3770 ha of native bush, wetlands, freshwater stream and volcanic rock
- Stacked earth (adobe-in-situ) walls
- North facing, set on volcanic ground shaped by Whatitiri Maunga
- Handcrafted kitchen in windblown rimu
- New 20-panel solar array, 10KW 3 Phase Inverter and battery-ready
- Wood burner has been the only heating ever needed
- Separate barn in sawn heart Lawson cypress with mezzanine space, workshop and tractor shed
- The land itself asked for something different: a historical rock wall, freshwater springs from the Whatitiri aquifer, a waterfall, and volcanic rock from Whatitiri Maunga itself. The house sits on that platform, and the boulders uncovered when the site was cleared became part of the garden.

The walls were built the slow way: earth trucked in from a local quarry, mixed on site, wheelbarrowed to the forms and poured layer by layer. That patience shows: the walls soak up the day's sun and release it slowly overnight, so the temperature inside barely moves.

An atrium hallway lit by aluminium louvres and glass runs through the heart of the home. Two verandahs frame the day, coffee on one side, evening drinks on the other, while the dining room catches the low winter sun.

Outside, the property has been shaped as much by the family as by the land: Christmas mornings spent outdoors, calves raised and lambs fed, 300 new natives planted along the stream last winter alone, and the everyday soundtrack of kereru and tui in the kowhai, fantail and grey warbler in the bush, and a resident ruru calling after dark. The barn down by the paddocks carries the same craftsmanship as the house, in sawn heart Lawson cypress.

After more than twenty years here, the owners are ready to hand this one on. Their children have grown, they've bought elsewhere and are relocating out of Whangarei. The timing is right for the next family to take up the story.

Contact Rae Ocean and Sandie Kirkman for the detailed property file, or join us at the next open home.

For sale by Auction, 11:00 am Wednesday 9 September 2026, Ray White Auction Room, 131 Port Road, Whangarei (unless sold prior).

www.rwwhangarei.co.nz/WHC39343