There are a number of stunning places to stay around the world, but few are infused with that natural sense of genuinely welcoming hospitality, and Grasmere Lodge on the Arthur’s Pass road to the west coast is one. It’s one of the oldest working stations in the south Island and still operates as such (you can do the ‘farm tour’) offering walks, shooting, fishing and riding.
Riding here is something special as it’s under the command of Heather Harrington – reluctantly famous for her ‘horse whisperer’ skills as she espouses the Parelli riding method – no bits, guiding the horse by halter with soft hands, legs and feet. Whether beginner or skilled, riding Grasmere’s over beautiful country is something spiritual
Grasmere offers the full country hospitality – dinner is communal unless specially requested, and pre-dinner cocktails fun, meeting new people, excellent food and a wine list very well selected.
The staff seem to immediately know your name and are always helpful with your comfort and enjoyment, giving the feeling of visiting your wealthy country aunt and being treated like her heir. I wish I was.

“Travel is often about escape and romance,” says Klara Glowczewska, editor in chief of Conde Nast Traveler. “And that includes in-room fireplaces. Even in the most remote destinations, it’s a pleasure to return to your room after a long day and relax fireside.” Glowczewska shares with U.S.A. Today some terrific hotels to keep your tootsies toasty by an open hearth:
‘Here at Grasmere Lodge, tucked away in the heart of the Southern Alps of New Zealand, guests find luxury blending with natural splendor. The Grasmere Suite is the perfect retreat, with a ‘sink into me’ sofa and armchairs in front of the schist (a type of stone) fireplace.’
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Once the base for a high-country station covering 43,000 acres, this traditional homestead in New Zealand’s Southern Alps now welcomes twenty-four guests, who can take part in seasonal farming activities among the cattle and fine-wool Merino sheep that still roam the rugged range.
Most visitors are happy just to sit around the dinner table and listen to farming stories over a five-course meal of New Zealand produce that may include venison, beef or lamb fresh from the farm or trout caught that same day by an elated guest.
Grasmere encompasses more than four rivers, eight streams and creeks and eight lakes, all of which may yield trophy trout. You can also fish for salmon at certain times of year.
Your hosts will pile you into a four-wheel drive and share their love for this beautiful land, or arrange for you to see it from a horse or a helicopter.
At an altitude of 2,200 feet, Grasmere is still dwarfed by the 5,783-foot mountain behind: just part of the beauty that makes a stay at Grasmere a cut above the rest.

In a golden valley just this side of the pass, I spot my destination – Grasmere, one of New Zealand’s oldest high-country stations and today a five-star lodge promising pure stream water on tap, hot and cold running venison and chocolate box views by the pound.

Grasmere stalwart Beth is at the homestead to greet me. I babble about the glorious scenery and suddenly fabulous weather as she walks me around the property, first positioned on the globetrotting posh lodge map in 1998 by Andrew Harper in his ‘Hideaway Report.’ It continues to be considered one of NZ’s best lodges.

Established more than 140 years ago, Grasmere was once the hub of a 17,400ha sheep station. It still produces merino wool, deer and cattle on 600 ha, but its main business is catering to travellers.
Named for Lake Grasmere in England’s Lake District, the antipodean version is set at an elevation of 700m with an 1800m mountain rearing behind. The homestead’s verandas look down to the lake and beyond to the wild tussock meadows and also where the local publican swears to have spotted a moa.
Behind the house, marked trails meander through forests of native beech and tangled holly.

Proprietors Oli and Vicki have cleverly merged the demands of a five-star tourism operation with those of the farm without sacrificing any of Grasmere’s country charms.

In the main homestead a rambling collection of lounges and libraries fitted with grand piano and huge stone fireplaces feels more home than hotel.

Sitting beside the russet tin farm huts and shearing shed, a new wing contains toasty-warm rooms perfect for cosying in bed and gazing at those alps.

There’s a gorgeous swimming pool (and fitness centre) with to-die-for vistas, two charming golden retrievers to accompany guests on their rambles and a little shop selling NZ pashminas (merinominas) and merino mink, a blend of wool and pesky possum fur.

Grasmere’s interiors are high-country lodge with lodges of deep reds and greens, comfy leather sofas, tartan carpets, shelves of well-thumbed books, blazing log fires and, everywhere, large windows framing astonishing views.

Nestled beneath towering mountain peaks, this sensationally sited high-country hideaway luxuriates beneath some of New Zealand’s most awesome alpine scenery (90 minutes west of Christchurch).
Adjacent to Arthur’s Pass National Park in the Southern Alps, the 13,000-acre working estate is grazed by Merino sheep, Hereford/Aberdeen Angus cows and a large deer herd.

Blazing log fires and deep-seated leather sofas warm the historic homestead’s artfully restored limestone manor, its rustic paneled lounge opening into a cozy library-den, breakfast conservatory and stylish indoor-outdoor dining room offering farm-raised venison/lamb/beef as well as such classic delicacies as Canterbury whitebait and crayfish.

The 12 pleasant accommodations vary in size, the best being the new and extra-spacious king-bedded junior suites with plush baths (whirlpool tub, separate shower stall) and furnished verandahs; for the epitome of comfort, request “Grasmere Suite” featuring two baths and a grand fireplaced living room.
Recreational enticements include a heated outdoor lap pool, tennis, fitness center, National Park bush walks, 4WD ranch safaris, kayaking and trout fishing on several wild nearby rivers.

With its working sheep station pared down to a mere 1,500 acres and the original 1858 homestead scaled up to include seven guest rooms, Grasmere Lodge, deep in the high country of the Canterbury region, has reinvented itself as a laid-back and luxurious small hotel – the kind that New Zealand does particularly well.

Twirly oak furniture, open fires and paisley bed linen all say Scottish hunting lodge. Grasmere embellishes this theme with country-house-party touches – everyone meets for drinks before enjoying a superbly cooked and served dinner – while forgetting the formality and capitalizing instead on its working status.

We accompanied the young farm manager on this rounds as he sorted out merino sheep for dipping and cattle for the market. Later, we mountain-biked through the tussocky hinterland before borrowing books from the swap shelf and curling up by the library fire.

We found just the place for an active couple in search of rugged mountains, total peace, and fine dining. Grasmere Lodge is a 1500-acre high country retreat in the heart of New Zealand’s Southern Alps, a 90-minute drive from Christchurch. Grasmere was originally a homestead built in 1858 and today, thanks to owners Oliver Newbegin and Vicki Harraway, has been extended into a top drawer haven for those who love the outdoors as much as they do pampering. Guests at Grasmere can relax in front of open fires, walk through beech forests, fish, hunt, ski, picnic, hike, play tennis, kayak, and mountain bike. Accommodations consist of seven cozy, luxurious rooms and meals served feature the best of local produce accompanied by an extensive list of award-winning New Zealand wines. Grasmere is very comfortable and the hosts are full of genuine warmth and good humor.

So, you’re reclining in the library-walled lounge at Grasmere Lodge in the spectacular high country of New Zealand’s South Island, a single malt whisky clenched in one hand and David McLeod’s ‘Kingdom in the Hills’ in the other, and what’s really just a yarn of honest expectation suddenly transforms into virtual reality.

It’s neither the Glendronach nor the pyrotechnics of McLeod’s prose that jump-starts the senses, but the realisation that Grasmere is the kingdom in the hills – a legendary station of 150,000ha running back into the majestic Southern Alps.

McLeod, a Cambridge graduate who arrived in New Zealand in 1925, fell in love with the blissful solitude and grandeur of high-country existence, bought Grasmere in 1930 and spent the next 40 years there farming and writing.

Today, Grasmere Lodge operates as one of those stylish, upmarket lodges that New Zealand does so well. The station is not as big as it used to be, but 18,000ha is enough to ensure that a capacity house of 14 guests won’t actually trip over each other. The property still breeds ultra-fine wool Merino sheep, Hereford and Aberdeen Angus cattle, and deer for restaurant venison and export stag horn velvet.

Current squire Oliver Newbegin flags the fact that he’s at least as much Renaissance man as cow cocky by assembling a rather tasty collection of classic Porsches where the machinery shed used to be. His lieutenants are well chosen too, Cordon Bleu-trained Vicki Harraway and acknowledged kitchen wizard Marie Briggs. No surprise, then, that food and wine receive due reverence.

However, it would be a great shame – and totally at odds with the spirit of the place – to remain gastronomically sedentary throughout the stay. For a start, there’s Romulus, the hill beside the lodge, which is an easy climb and rewarding both for the views and the beauty of the track. Grasmere Lodge also has a rather special added attraction. Surrounding the station are four large freestone rivers, eight streams and creeks and eight lakes, all with the potential to produce trophy fish. Graceful deer and less-graceful wild boar roam the forests amid tumbling streams and hidden tarns. Go ahead, shoot them. Or better still, blow away some clay pigeons in the grounds of the homestead. It has a more appropriate air of genteel recreation about it.

Brickbats: Access by road can be tricky during heavy midwinter snowfalls. Ask your car-rental company to supply you with chains but be prepared for delays during snow-clearing operations.
Bouquets: There’s something almost spiritual about high-country grandeur and Grasmere’s hospitality makes a lie of that adage “good views, bad reviews.”

A sheep, deer and cattle station that is also an extremely smart seven-room inn, Grasmere Lodge offers a concentrate of everything beautiful and challenging about life here in the Southern Alps, 75 miles west of Christchurch. The printed material that hotels leave out for guests is rarely useful, but at Grasmere it’s a tonic orientation: “In an emergency, dial 0 and we can contact a doctor. However, the nearest is likely to be in Darfield, 80 km away…” “Almost everywhere in the country is a long-distance call…” “Grasmere is set at an altitude of 700 metres but is still dwarfed by the 1100-metre mountain behind…” “The weather can be very changeable. Please let us know your plans and when you plan to be back…”

Founded as a farm in 1858, Grasmere is run by Oliver Newbegin, former director of a New Zealand travel agency empire.

Before a man-against-nature backdrop of beech forest, subalpine scrub, and prime fishing opportunities – eight creeks, four large rivers, and eight lakes – the civilities Newbegin has brought to the lodge have a thrilling potency. Box topiaries in Versailles-style planters line the drive. Guest rooms, models of upholstered comfort, are stocked with shortbread and carafes of port. If you leave your book lying spine-up, the housekeeper will mark your place and put it on the nightstand, when she thinks you’ll want it next.

Dinner is at a mahogany pedestal table set with silver chargers. The fare – smoked lamb with mustard fruits (apricots, figs, and prunes marinated in mustard and vinegar), herb-crusted venison with onion marmalade – is unexpectedly refined and imaginative.

Farm life runs parallel to inn life at Grasmere. As manager Eden Crawford dumped salt blocks from his pick-up among the sheep one afternoon, I opened and closed the gates between paddocks, a station-country ritual. “Now you’re a real Kiwi,’ Crawford said.