Seventeen miles north of Hilo on Hawaii island, a developer has made a big bet at making the Hamakua Coast more known for ultra-luxury homes than farms by building a helipad-capped mansion next to an oceanfront waterfall and listing the property for sale at $26.5 million.
The bet was put to the test in a highly publicized auction held Saturday for the estate dubbed Water Falling.
New York-based luxury real estate firm Concierge Auctions announced Wednesday that the auction, which was held without a reserve price so that the highest bid was accepted, was a success.
A pending purchase is expected to close April 30, according to cooperating brokerage firm Hilo Brokers Ltd.
What the high bidder bid, however, wasn’t disclosed.
So a mystery remains, at least for the moment, about whether the effort paid off to help make Hamakua the next hot location for super-rich vacation-home buyers looking for trophy properties.
Hamakua, long dominated by sugar cane fields that now are largely fallow, is on the opposing side of Hawaii island from Kohala Coast luxury resorts where multimillion-dollar vacation homes are common.
Water Falling developer Scott Watson believed the Hamakua Coast was primed to "explode" with such homes and wanted to be at the forefront of the change, according to an August interview in the Hilo-based Hawaii Tribune-Herald.
"This area is ready to go," he told the newspaper.
Watson could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Hilo Brokers said it could not discuss auction results. Concierge Auction representatives did not respond to requests for additional information Wednesday.
The auction firm in its announcement said 10 bidders qualified to participate, but didn’t say how many competed.
In a written statement from Concierge Auctions, Watson suggested that he found the right buyer and was happy with his decision to auction the property.
Watson and a partner, Laurie Robertson, developed Water Falling on 9 acres zoned for agriculture and once planted in macadamia nut trees. The partners paid $1.3 million for the site, according to property records, and finished the home in 2011 or 2012.
"This place was just 500 mac nut trees and a shack," Watson said in the Tribune-Herald story.
"We turned it into something beautiful."
Watson said in a video promoting the auction that he discovered the property 17 years ago while jet-skiing, and spent four years building the 8,100-square-foot mansion with over-the-top features including the helipad with landing spaces for three helicopters, a golf course, and a tennis and basketball court with seating for 450 spectators.
The three-story home, which also features a pneumatic glass elevator and an Olympic-size infinity pool, is perched beside a 250-foot cliff with a waterfall.
County building permits indicate that the developers spent more than $2 million on construction. Hawaii County, for property tax purposes, values the property at $3 million, including about $500,000 for the land and $2.5 million for the buildings.
The mansion was listed for sale last year at $26.5 million. The property was heavily promoted by Concierge Auctions and publicized in the Wall Street Journal, the affluent lifestyle guide Just Luxe and a Zillow blog article that appeared on NBCnews.com, Today.com and Forbes.com.
Concierge Auctions calls the home an "architectural masterpiece," while others involved with the project have said the design was inspired by the Fallingwater home designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright over a waterfall in Pennsylvania.
Hilo Brokers founder Kelly Moran said in a statement that the home’s design and resort-level amenities combined with the cliffside setting makes Water Falling unlike anything else in Hawaii or maybe the world. "To have an oceanfront location paired with spectacular waterfalls is simply a buyer’s dream," he said.
