āIāve always seen my life as a series of chapters, really,ā says a grey-haired, earnest Gareth Morgan, 72, casting his squinted eye over hectares of bucolic farmland he owns at a site north of Poriruaās PÄuatahanui Village.
āThey come to an end naturally, and then youāve got to replace them. Otherwise Iāll go spare just sitting doing nothing. So Iāll keep doing this kind of thing, being very active till I canāt. I think the joy of this chapter is I didnāt see it coming.ā
The PutÄruru-born former political figure, economist, businessperson and richlister has, over the past six years, been turning his hand to a new legacy adventure: art.
Possibly the worst-kept open secret in Wellington since 2019, is the fact that Morgan has, with, he says, ātens and tens of millionsā of dollars, quietly been building a sculpture park to rival the likes of the legendary Gibbs Farm off the Kaipara Coast Highway north of Auckland.
Having been bothering his wife Joanne in the garden throughout the Covid years, Morgan says he decided to get his own.
Taking inspiration in part from the Gibbs sculpture park (which still remains New Zealandās largest), and in part from the squealing delight of children whoād stop to marvel at art in the front yard of his ocean-view Marine Pde mansion at Mount Maunganui near Tauranga, the newly-unveiled Morgans Art Park sits somewhere at the intersection of experimental art, natural landscape and imagination.
From this summer, Morgan, who lives in Oriental Bay, will begin taking bookings for guided tours of the private 4.5-kilometre trail that frames his nine-hole golf course, with entry in the realm of up to $300 per person, including a meal and wine. Ten sculptures are already up, with a further five being erected by the end of this summer, and a final two taking the total to 17 by the end of 2026.
āItās taken me six years so far ā it shouldāve taken six months. Some would say Iām unreasonable. But the whole process has been very enjoyable, so I hope that when people come here they can get part of that,ā Morgan said on a site tour.
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