After nearly a decade of filling Katikati with the scent of freshly cut lavender, Pieter and Helena Maarschalk are selling their beloved family home and farm.

The long-running Lavendell owners, and familiar faces at Katikati’s weekly markets, say they are ready for the next chapter to start early in 2026.

“It’s time,” Helena said. “We just want to be closer to the family.”

The Lavendell dream began in early 2015 when the couple were living in the Auckland suburb of Pukekohe.

Helena, a trained teacher and former church worker, was looking for something new.

“I’m not one to sit still and do nothing,” she said. “I had read a couple of novels, which inspired me to start my own business. I just didn’t know what.”

Being a Christian, Helena prayed and asked for guidance.

“I was walking one day and the word ‘lavender’ popped into my head,” she said.

“I knew nothing about it. I just knew what I saw growing in the hedges.”

After sharing the idea with Pieter, Helena began developing her own lavender business.

She started out making hand-crafted products using dried lavender and bought a supply of essential oil and rubbed lavender from a lavender business in Waiuku.

Soon, Helena was making lavender wheat bags, lavender eye pads, scented candles and more. She would sell them at “lavender parties” and the Pukekohe farmers’ market.

“That was quite successful,” she said. “But, we got to the point where we really wanted to grow it ourselves.”

That prompted the pair to look for a property to set up their own lavender farm.

In 2016, they purchased a three-bedroom home on a 5915sq m lifestyle block in Katikati, near where their son and daughter-in-law lived at the time.

They planted their first block of lavender, about 200 plants, in 2017 and another 150 plants a year later.

“We count them every now and then,” a proud Pieter said.

Over the next nine years, the couple renovated the bathrooms and painted the outside the “pearly grey” lavender colour.

“It was nice having a blank canvas to do what we wanted,” Helena said.

In 2019, Pieter and Helena distilled their first oil using the still from a woman who grew lavender in Waihi.

Soon after, they transitioned from buying oil to being able to produce their own and Pieter has been extracting the oil from the Lavendell farm ever since.

“It was a real learning curve,” Helena said. “But so much fun.”

The couple have been selling their home-grown essential lavender oils, bath soap, shampoo bars, liquid hand soap, lavender mist, eye masks and plants at the weekly Katikati Plant & Produce Market.

They are also familiar faces at the monthly Town & Country Market in Katikati.

Now, the long-standing lavender business owners are selling up.

An aerial view of the Katikati property. Photo / Supplied

Pieter has had health challenges over the past year and he and Helena want to be closer to their grandchildren in the South Island.

“We feel they’re [the grandchildren] growing up so fast,” Helena said.

“It will be bittersweet really, because we will be looking forward to something new but having to say goodbye to our whole life here.”

They will miss their farm, their home, their neighbours and the wonderful people they have met through markets and their Katikati Community Baptist Church “family”.

“We will really miss that. It’s been a great blessing,” Helena said.

“One of the things we love is the view and hearing the sound of the birds,” Pieter said.

“The grandkids just loved playing in the garden and the cross country course Pieter made in the dell,” Helena said.

Pieter said they will especially miss their neighbours and the Katikati community.

Bower Real Estate sales consultant Joanna Overall said she had known a family connection of the couple for many years and was happy to help sell their beloved home.

“They are wonderful people,” she said. “The home offers a peaceful retreat surrounded by trees, birdlife, and views to the Kaimai Ranges. It’s the kind of place where mornings start with birdsong and evenings end on the deck watching the light fade across the gardens.”

The Lavendell home is on the market and is up for auction on December 3.

– Content supplied by Bower