We are in our early 70s and were attracted to this Sanderson Group village because of the spaciousness of the villas. Each home is stand-alone and feels lovely and private thanks to the gardens and landscaping. We personally love our patio area. Whilst we’ve got houses around us, we’re quite private thanks to the way they’re all designed.
I love how warm the place is. The villas are all north facing and drenched in sun. We hardly use the heating which is quite remarkable. We were living at the beach before and we knew coming back to the Waikato it would be colder. But we’re certainly not feeling it at all so that’s a big bonus. When you’re older, you feel the cold a little more.
The facilities are excellent and a number of the residents join in activities together. There’s bowls, croquet and pétanque courts, and a golf course nearby. So there are a lot of things available. It’s up to you whether you use them or not, but they are available.
We love the clubhouse. Most of our socialising before we moved in here was just going to dinner with friends. But here you can be active and socialise at the same time. Renzo’s got a group of men who just text each other and off they go down the road to have a game of snooker. If you’re not in a village atmosphere, that’s a little more difficult.
The older you get, sometimes the more isolated you can become. But it’s just easy here. You don’t have to feel isolated at all because there’s always the clubhouse to go down to. At the moment the fire’s roaring so it’s very conducive to just wandering down there and socialising with people. It fills that gap that elderly people can fall into.
The wider family is very accepted in this village. The grandchildren love coming down to stay in the holidays and they know there are things for them to do like the swimming pool and movie theatre. They can scooter around easily because there’s no traffic.
The villa that we’re in is only two bedroom but it is 250m² which is a large home. It’s also got a media room which you could actually convert to a third bedroom if you want to.
The kitchen is outstanding. I’ve got a beautiful big scullery which I’m really enjoying because I’m a bit of a cook. I’ve got a double oven and it’s all high quality Bosch appliances with a lovely stone benchtop.
Everything is high end. All our friends come in and go ‘wow, this is not what we were expecting’. You instantly love the place when you walk in. Our son-in-law is a builder. And every time he comes to visit he’s always impressed with the quality of the build. He mentions it every time.
We initially retired to the beach at Whangamata. And we are feeling a lot happier about being closer to medical facilities now. The Coromandel hasn’t been that great in recent years in terms of road closures so we’re feeling more secure now we’re here.
The management and staff are just lovely. The day we were welcomed in here, we felt like a king and queen. A big platter lunch came and bouquets of flowers. It was really superb.