2 October 2025
Richard and Leigh Fisher’s home is among the new line-up of handpicked properties in this year’s Homes and Gardens Tour.
Richard and Leigh’s Point Wells property boasts beautiful views of the Ōmaha River. So, when they bought it 11 years ago they decided to build a casual, relaxed-style home with floor-to-ceiling windows that took in those views.
Richard gave their architects, PAC Studio and Steven Lloyd, a broad brief: to create a farmhouse- style home, all wood, no gib, that sat lightly on the land. Then they uplifted the existing house and gave it to the previous owner, who transported it up the river on a barge.
Their new home took 12 months to complete, and what a home it is. Two simple but elegant pavilions separated by a breezeway, with a small guest house that accommodates the grandchildren and extended family when they stay. In the summer you can throw open the doors, so that it really does feel like you’re outside. In the winter it’s warm and toasty with a wood fire and plenty of couches to curl up on. Their home is casual, comfortable and unpretentious - furnished with solid, dependable furniture and colourful, eclectic art.
Their 10-acre section is planted with grasses and natives that blend organically into the landscape (their garden designer was Andy Hamilton), but they’re also big on flowers. Large beds of tulips greet you at the front gate, there are freesias and daffodils everywhere, lilies and gladioli. Richard has a dahlia garden with around 230 plants. The couple pick and harvest them every year to sell for events and weddings, and any leftover flowers are sold at the gate. Also, near the gate, a cricket field and pavilion which they maintain for the Matakana Cricket Club to use, at no cost, every weekend in the summer.
The property is so stunning it features in the pages of a new book about creating homes inspired by nature, New Zealand Rustic, by Kate Coughlan, Tessa Chrisp and Yolanta Wondendorp.
And as to their reason for agreeing to show their home in our Homes & Gardens Tour, “we couldn’t think of a more worthwhile cause,” they say. There is also a lovely synergy: In the 1980s Richard was one of New Zealand’s early pioneers of fertility treatment. He co-founded Fertility Associates in 1987 and in 2009 was recognised as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to medicine. Just as he supported the creation of new life, now he supports the journey at the end of life. “I hadn’t really thought about it like that, but I suppose that’s true,” he smiles.
In between viewing homes, recharge at the Point Wells Town Hall at the Homes & Gardens Hub, where you’ll find morning & afternoon teas baked onsite by our Hospice chef David, coffee and food carts, raffles, plant stalls, art & craft, silent auctions and a beautiful green space for picnicking. Secure your tickets here.
All proceeds go to Harbour Hospice services in the Warkworth/Wellsford community.
