An exceptional luxury lodge experience

Claremont Country Estate is one of Canterbury’s truly authentic heritage country homesteads offering luxury accommodation in New Zealand. It was built in 1866 and is listed by the NZ Historic Places Trust.

A stay in Claremont's exclusive luxury lodge accommodation in New Zealand will be truly memorable, reminiscent of a stay in an elegant 19th century English country house. You will be treated to sumptuous guest accommodation, mouth-watering cuisine and fine New Zealand wines and will receive unobtrusive personal service and friendly hosting.

The house has been lovingly restored and modernised to provide the latest in amenities and the ultimate in comfort. This exclusive luxury lodge accommodation is furnished with antiques of the period to create the ambience and elegance of a gracious bygone era.

The luxury lodge New Zealand accommodation is surrounded by acres of delightful, manicured flower gardens, fruit trees and landscaped grounds that include many of the original shrubs, hedges and enormous specimen trees. This provides a wonderful mature garden setting. You’ll awaken to an orchestra of birdsong and will enjoy the sublimely tranquil setting, adjacent to some of the most spectacular scenery in Canterbury.

Guests have the use of two extremely comfortable and gracious living rooms with warm open fireplaces, an extensive library, shady vine-clad verandas and sunny stone walled paved courtyards.

We have an all-weather tennis court, badminton and lawn croquet. Simply relax and unwind or enjoy the many activities available on-site or nearby.

As a guest, you also have exclusive access to our 2,400 acre estate with over 10 kilometres of direct river frontage, may walk over the extensive rolling farmland and explore the amazing natural wonders of our private nature reserve.

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Claremont luxury heritage lodge steeped in history
Claremont was formerly part of one of the great North Canterbury Estates – the “Double Corner” Estate, one of the oldest great Canterbury farming estates. The limestone homestead was built by Captain Weeks in 1866 and named “Claremont” after Queen Victoria´s private residence. Hand-cut limestone blocks, quarried on site, were used. This was quite a feat at that time as there were no roads and the only access was on horseback via the river bed.

The famous geologist Julius Von Haast lived at Claremont at the time he discovered Moa bones in the nearby Glenmark Swamp. These moa bones were sold to museums around the world and raised revenue that was used to fund and found the delightful Canterbury museum in Christchurch.

The estate boasts stunning scenery and a treasure trove of some of the most amazing geological features in NZ. In 1859 Thomas Hood discovered NZ’s first dinosaur fossil here and in 1872 Alexander McKay discovered the fossilized remains of a plesiosaur at Claremont. These remains are now in the Canterbury museum. Since then the fossilized remains of over 134 vertebrates have been removed from Claremont and as recently as 2004 the complete head of a mosasaur was found on the property.

During the 1980´s the “KT boundary” was discovered at Claremont and this contributed to the conclusions of Louis Alvorez that planet Earth had been hit by a giant meteor 65 million years ago. The remains of the world´s oldest penguin remains were also recently found here leading scientists to conclude that birds co-existed with the dinosaurs.

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