Taupo, on a bank of the Waikato River below the Huka Falls. An Irishman, Alan Pye, founded the place as a fishermen’s camp in 1924; Alex van Heeren bought it in 1984 and engaged the New Zealand designer Virginia Fisher to make a lodge of it; Baillie Lodges took it on in 2021, closed it in April 2024 and reopened it after a renovation reported at NZ$25 million. Huka is this register’s case of a house passed on three times without once changing its subject.
The house
The lodge dates itself to a camp. “In 1924 Irishman Alan Pye founded Huka Lodge as a fishermen’s camp,” its own pages say, on the banks of the Waikato River, and the trout water has been the reason ever since. Sixty years later: “In 1984, Alex van Heeren purchased Huka Lodge and engaged New Zealand-based designer Virginia Fisher,” who drew the main lodge and the guest suites. “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II visited four times during her reign,” the lodge records. The two residences carry the two men’s names: the Alan Pye Cottage and the Alex van Heeren Cottage.
The third owner is a company. Baillie Lodges “was founded in 2003 by James and Hayley Baillie”, who first stayed as guests “in the early 2000s”; Travel Weekly reported on 8 February 2021 that the lodge had joined the collection after negotiations with “the Huka Retreats’ parent company”. In August 2023 it announced that it “will farewell its last guests on April 30 next year and will reopen on December 1, 2024”, with Fisher engaged again. Micenet reported on 4 March 2025 that it had “reopened in Taupō after a NZ$25 million renovation”, sleeping fifty-two “across 20 suites and two cottages” within “17 acres of parkland”. It now carries a banner reading “Baillie Lodges and Tierra Hotels Unite Under Beckons”.
What distinguishes it
A fishing camp of 1924 is still the whole argument Alan Pye established a camp for fishermen on the Waikato bank, and every owner since has built outward from it. The estate holds seventeen acres, which is frontage rather than extent. What it controls is a bank of fast water below a fall.
The same designer was engaged by two owners forty years apart Virginia Fisher was appointed by Alex van Heeren in 1984 to draw the main lodge and the guest suites. She was engaged again for the renovation announced in 2023, and micenet describes her as the designer “who also worked on the lodge for the previous owner”. Continuity of hand across a change of ownership is rare in this Part.
The two residences are named for the two men, not for the company The Alan Pye Cottage carries the name of the founder of the 1924 camp; the Alex van Heeren Cottage carries the name of the owner who made it a lodge. Twenty suites and these two residences give twenty-two keys. The corporate owner of 2021 put neither its own name nor its founders’ on a building.
One renovation, two published figures Micenet reported a NZ$25 million renovation on 4 March 2025. The lodge’s own press page carries headlines reading both “$25m Renovation” and “A $23m facelift”. The register quotes both rather than averaging them.
Fifty-two beds, twenty-two keys, seventeen acres Micenet gives the capacity as fifty-two guests across twenty suites and two cottages, set in seventeen acres of parkland. The Baillie Lodges company profile gives “20 suites along with two ultra-exclusive residences”. The house is small against its reputation and small against its river.
The lodge was built for people who fish and has been renovated by people who understand that. A guest with no interest in a river, in a lawn running down to one, or in dinner at a set hour will find seventeen acres a short walk. It is twenty-two keys: the house cannot absorb a group that wants to disappear into it.
Signature rooms and dates
Competitive landscape
Sources
What the entry rests on, read 13 October 2026. Each reference records the facts it supports, so a disputed line can be traced to the account it came from.