One built a multimillion-dollar tourism empire, the other helped shape Auckland’s skyline. Now Ryan Sanders and Marco Creemers discuss growing up gay, finding love and the extraordinary gamble behind their Central Otago castle.
It was raining when Ryan Sanders and Marco Creemers first drove up the long, tree-lined driveway towards Earnscleugh Castle. The historic Central Otago mansion had certainly seen better days, but the couple barely needed to step inside to know their lives were about to change.
“We got out of the car, looked at each other and said, ‘We’re going to buy this, aren’t we?’” Ryan remembers.
Together, they were about to embark on an extraordinarily ambitious restoration, while sacrificing years of living together.
But to understand the two men who bought a castle, you first need to discover the different lives that brought them together.
The Boy Who Dreamed Big
Growing up in North Beach, Christchurch, Ryan tells us he knew he was gay from a very young age, but never felt that his sexuality and his interests were in conflict.
“A lot of people had it much harder than I did,” he acknowledges. “For me it wasn’t much of a challenge, because the things I naturally loved, like sport and rugby, were the things people assumed, wrongly, were only for straight boys.”
Ryan made a conscious decision to not come out and explore his sexuality later in life, but never doubted what his future might look like.
“Even at four or five, I used to daydream about the handsome man I’d marry.”
After moving to Britain to play professional rugby, an injury put an end to that ambition. Instead, he found himself working for the Royal Bank of Scotland, dreaming up a New Zealand adventure tourism business despite never having worked in that industry.
With his savings and a business plan, Haka Tours was born.
The first tour was forecast to attract 20 customers. Just five booked, meaning they didn’t have enough money to hire a coach, so tour manager Steve drove the guests around New Zealand in his own car.
But the bookings kept coming and within six months, Ryan knew he had something special, so returned to Christchurch and moved back into his childhood bedroom at 32, having left at 19.
The business grew rapidly, helped by Ryan’s early embrace of digital marketing. His first traveller accommodation, Haka Lodge, brought an amusing moment of vindication: the ten-bedroom house had belonged to a school friend’s family, who had repeatedly banned teenage Ryan from the property for drunken teenage tomfoolery.
“I bought it 16 years after I was last banned,” he laughs.
Haka eventually grew to 180 staff and $34 million in annual revenue, collecting numerous accolades, including four New Zealand Tourism Awards in 2017.
Then Covid arrived.
“It was absolutely brutal. Revenue didn’t slow down, it fell off a cliff.”
With international tourism paralysed, Ryan had to make 160 employees redundant, delivering the news by video call because of the pandemic.
“That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in business.”
Eventually, the crisis also prompted reinvention. Ryan sold Haka Tours and pursued new investment opportunities.
“Volatility doesn’t create opportunity; it reveals it,” he reflects.
Building A Career & Finding Himself
Marco’s professional journey began in an entirely different fashion.
After studying horticulture at Lincoln and property management at Massey, he entered the workforce following the 1987 sharemarket crash. Jobs were scarce, so he started as a labourer at Samson Corporation.
Sir Michael Friedlander gave him an opportunity, and over the following three decades, Marco worked his way up to become the company’s General Manager and Projects Director.
His legacy is visible across Auckland, from Ironbank on Karangahape Road and Geyser in Parnell to significant developments in Ponsonby.
Geyser became New Zealand’s first building to achieve a six-Green-Star As Built rating, helping establish new standards in environmentally responsible commercial architecture.
“It’s a quiet kind of pride,” he says of his career. “I still catch myself driving past a building and remembering a particular problem we solved.”
While his professional ascent was remarkable, Marco’s personal life followed a more complicated path, as he struggled for years to accept his sexuality.
“I’d had a long-held sense that I was someone different to who many people thought I ought to be.”
He met his wife while working at Samson, and together they had a daughter, Isabella.
“I knew that being honest about who I was had the potential to turn a lot of lives upside down. But slowly, and inevitably, I realised I had to be my true self.”
For Marco, finding happiness with Ryan made that difficult process worthwhile.
“When Ryan proposed on Everest, I knew every one of those hard moments had been worth it.”
From Gaydar To Everest
Their love story began on Gaydar.
The dating website presented Marco with seven potential matches. Ryan was number three.
“I’m glad I didn’t stop at two,” Marco laughs.
Their connection was immediate.
“Something clicked straight away. It’s hard to describe it, but I just felt I’d found my soulmate.”
Ryan remembers Marco arriving ten minutes late. Their afternoon drinks went so well that he invited Marco along to dinner with two friends, who promptly subjected his prospective boyfriend to an impromptu interview.
“I remember how kind he was, his beautiful smile and his warmth. I could tell he was sincere, loving and soft in all the right ways. There was an ease with him. I never felt the need to be anything other than myself, and I still don’t.”
Within a year, Ryan had moved from Christchurch to Auckland to be with Marco.
A proposal high above Everest Base Camp followed, along with a spectacular wedding in Wānaka, where the couple skydived into their celebrations and had one of their favourite Kiwi bands, The Exponents, perform.
“Life’s very short, so why not go big?” Ryan explains.
It’s a philosophy that would eventually lead them to their most ambitious adventure yet.
An $11 Million Leap Of Faith
When the couple purchased Earnscleugh Castle in 2022 for $2.5 million, they knew restoring the Category 1 heritage property would be expensive. They hadn’t quite anticipated just how expensive.
Commissioned by entrepreneur Stephen Spain more than a century earlier, the magnificent homestead had never been completed according to its original plans.
For Marco, who had spent his career creating and preserving buildings, it represented an extraordinary opportunity.
“In Auckland, I was building for other people. At Earnscleugh, we’re finishing a job started more than 100 years ago, and it’s our home.”
But their original renovation budget of approximately $3 million was soon overwhelmed by the reality of restoring the historic property. The restoration ultimately cost an extraordinary $11 million, bringing their total investment to $13.5 million.
A nine-month dispute with the council over plastering the exterior proved particularly difficult.
“In a low moment, one of us threw out the idea of putting it back on the market,” Ryan admits. “It was never a serious option. But giving up isn’t in either of our DNA.”
Making the dream work meant selling businesses and property, while Marco moved south to manage the restoration and Ryan remained in Auckland.
They spent much of three years living apart.
“It was the right decision for this property, but we’d never make that level of sacrifice again.”
And despite their grand ambitions, Ryan admits the thing he missed most was not sharing a bed with his husband.
“Marco’s a really cold sleeper and I’m a really hot one, so I missed having my block of ice to cuddle into. I sleep much better with him.”
For Marco, the completed castle represents the pinnacle of a career spent working with remarkable buildings.
Ryan, meanwhile, has already dreamed up their next venture, Sanctum 7, a luxury seven-day wellness retreat that will launch this month, bringing another dimension to the historic property.
As a young boy, Ryan tells us, he used to imagine one day living somewhere with a long, tree-lined driveway.
Today, he has precisely that, leading to one of New Zealand’s grandest historic homes, shared with the man he dreamed of marrying.
So what would that rugby-mad little boy from North Beach make of the life these two have built together?
“I think he’d say, ‘Well played!’”
For more information on Earnscleugh Castle and Sanctum 7, visit earnscleughcastle.co.nz and sanctum7.co
