Style_ April 01, 2021

22 Style | Feature
Kaalene Shale may have been from Auckland, but she
was a South Islander at heart. All she wanted was a
ute, two dogs and a gravel driveway that crunched to let
you know your children had made it home safely at night.
It is apt, then, that she and her Scottish husband, Allan
McAndie, found themselves the owners and operators of
Wānaka Homestead Lodge and Cottages.
It is a beautiful sprawling getaway built on Wānaka
Station – a former sheep station that once covered the
south side of Lake Wānaka before the township was even
a twinkle in the eye of developers.
The lodge at the homestead is like something straight
out of those ski brochures you had on the kitchen bench
before you turfed them out because of Covid-19. With
rustic schist stonework combined with earthy timbers
on the exterior, you’d be forgiven for thinking you had
inadvertently wandered into a Hallmark Christmas special.
Inside, soaring exposed rafters and wrought-iron light
fixtures continue the ambience, while a sense of replete
luxury is brought in with soothing colour hues. If that
wasn’t enough, there are also two delightful self-contained
cottages: Ruby and Lismore.
The journey to this idyllic slice of Wānaka life was equal
parts Hallmark and hard work for this duo.
Kaalene and Allan met when he lived next door to her
sister in Muscat, Oman. Kaalene had popped over to visit
her sister from where she was teaching in London. They
became good friends but it appeared as though their
family had other ideas for the duo. They were made the
godparents of Kaalene’s sister’s second child, Henrik – all
part of their cunning plan, laughs Kaalene.
“We call it an arranged marriage, because our family
were adamant that we should be together!”
But it worked. The couple married in the Bombay Hills
while still living in the Middle East, where Kaalene taught at
a British International School and Allan worked in oil and
gas. Fast-forward a few years and along came twin boys
– and a certain feeling from Allan.
“He got this look on his face, like, ‘I need to figure out
where we are going to land, where we are going to be
and where our littlies will grow,’” says Kaalene.
So Allan began the hunt. His family had operated a
guest house in St Andrew’s, Scotland, around the corner
from The Royal and Ancient Golf Club. He shared
Kaalene’s dream of a simple, small-town home where their
boys could grow up running around, perhaps getting up
to a delightful amount of mischief. In other words, New
Zealand was beckoning.
There were two options on Trade Me – a Hawke’s Bay
property and the Wānaka Homestead.
“He fell in love with Wānaka and we literally bought it
online, subject to seeing it. He flew out from Dubai when
the boys were five months while my mum was with me
and came here for a week,” says Kaalene.
A few days later she got a phone call: “Kaalene, I think
this is it, this feels like home.” And so it was.
ABOVE: Allan and Kaalene with their twins, Joe and Gabe.
Photo: Stephanie Hamilton