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A forty-five-minute drive from Queenstown, this lodge sits in a breathtaking spot on the shore of Lake Wakatipu, looking towards the Humboldt Mountains. In the 1970s, when an American couple bought the property, it abutted a 65,000-acre working sheep station, and sheep still graze on the hillside. Back then, Tom and Pauline Tusher figured that one day they might build a cabin so they could return to fly-fish, but after Tom retired from running Levi Strauss, their simple cabin grew into a grand lodge with thirteen guest rooms. And the Tushers now spend almost a third of every year here. Soon after Blanket Bay opened, in the late ’90s, its reputation for exquisite scenery, fine service and gorgeous rooms reportedly enticed Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston to come for their honeymoon. (And having starred in A River Runs Through It, Brad must have seen plenty of pretty river spots.)

The design of the lodge, inside and out, owes less to New Zealand influences than to the Tushers’ time in the American West. Astonishing mountain views as well as an enormous rock fireplace, an imposing antler chandelier and log beams dominate the great room. Salvaged wood floors and railroad ties give the lodge an antique patina, and whimsical fabrics printed with fishing ties and duck decoys add to the feeling that you’re in someone’s home. My favorite touch was the “excursion” room, downstairs, where guests can plot the following day’s activities on the giant map of the area on one wall. A helicopter jaunt to an obscure stretch of river for fly-fishing and a picnic, perhaps? Or a drop-off somewhere along the Milford Trek for hiking the least touristed bit? Horses can be saddled up, kayaks launched. Satisfying any adventurous urge seems so easy and pleasurable when you know that a wine cellar and spa await you on your return. And when the guests gather in the den to have cocktails and trade tales of the day’s exploits, the conviviality is infectious. Rooms from $879, including breakfast, pre-dinner cocktails and dinner.

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In 1978, on a sabbatical from Wall Street, investor Julian Robertson Jr. chose New Zealand as a place where he could escape and ponder the future. He and his wife, Josie, and their three sons visited Aukland. The perspective he gained there led him to found the Tiger fund, one of the first dazzlingly successful hedge funds, and to return to New Zealand in 1995 to buy a farm on the North Island. At the time he had no intention of becoming a hotelier. But when Robertson, an avid golfer, first saw the 4,000-acre farm and the way it hugged the coastline, he thought it cried out for a golf course. Visions of creating a Pebble Beach of the South Pacific haunted him. In 2000, the now top-rated course opened and, a year later, its namesake lodge. Josie Robertson worked with Virginia Fisher, the New Zealand interior designer responsible for Huka Lodge, to create the main house, which feels like the Robertsons’ home; in fact, it was for a while six years ago, when the eleven guest cottages were being built.

The cottages at Kauri Cliffs have two separate suites, each of which, after you pass through a small entryway and into a large bedroom with a fireplace and sitting area, opens onto a private porch that looks out over the Pacific. The owner’s cottage, which is available when the Robertsons aren’t on-site, has two bedrooms, an enormous living room, an office, a kitchen, a library and an infinity pool. Golfers have come from around the world for the Dave Harman–designed championship course since it opened, but Robertson gave them another reason to visit when he opened a second course, Cape Kidnappers, an easy helicopter hop away. And for those who want to do something other than golf, activities include sailing, deep-sea fishing, snorkeling and sea kayaking in the Bay of Islands, even sheep shearing at a Kauri Cliffs’s farm. On my visit, I confess, I spent a lot of time just reading before the fireplace in my suite (love the instant fire generated by a light switch) or on my porch, where I could also take in the views. Suites from $952.