Our People

The only human residents of a thriving Great Barrier Island wildlife sanctuary are fiercely protective of their native neighbours.

Hilarious hula-hooper Toni Smith brings her international street performance routines home for Bread and Circus, the World Buskers’ Festival in Christchurch from January 10 to February 3.

Yvonne Sutherland has been firing and painting hens for more than three decades and collectors around the world obviously adore them as much as she does.

It takes a village to create a thriving business for one Southland couple. Or in this case, several very small villages, a railway, and a real church.

While her knowledge of soap-making was limited, she had already studied essential oils through a correspondence course which proved useful for what has turned out to be Clean Earth Soap.

For more than 100 years Wellington’s Clyde Quay boat sheds have been happy places for people who love tinkering with boats.

A small house in an olive grove is the smart home of Brooke and Maggie Noonan's dreams.

Hayley Rhind moved onto a new farm with her husband and two young children. Then she had a brilliant idea for a clothing business.

A group of innovative thinkers has been given top honours at the prestigious NZI Rural Women Business Awards.

Former bartender James Waugh went underground to develop a range of Prohibition-inspired soft drinks that are mixing it with the best.

When Bill ‘Grandpa’ Kirkham came up with a good idea for a chicken feeder, he had no idea it would turn into a family-run multi-national business.

A herbal tea hobby has brewed into a strong cup of business for a Nelson gardener.

Six months' volunteering abroad inspired a 24-year-old Wellingtonian to look for a sustainable and economical solution to a worldwide problem - and to implement it on her university campus.

Brooke and Maggie Noonan left jobs at Auckland Zoo to build an off-grid, eco-friendly house in the Far North.

New Zealand’s Lord of the Reins, Lance O’Sullivan, and his wife Bridgette have found new passions beyond the heady days of Bollinger and BMWs.

A pair of Wairarapa sisters are two decades in to making comfy underwear designed for the wearer, not the viewer.

A brewery and tasting room in Kingsland is planning to convert as many as possible to craft beer. It’s fermenting a potent name for itself, including with thirsty international visitors, fresh off the plane.

She’s a hard job, wool handling. For some, it’s harder than shearing. Pagan Karauria of Central Otago says that’s the case for her, and she’s a master wool handler as well as a shearer.

The food was exquisite, the sake was flowing and the conversation was filled with colourful travel stories at the NZ Life & Leisure and Walk Japan reader lunch.

Fortunate indeed are the endangered Blue Ducks now flourishing under the protection of a family that has figured out how to combine farming with eco-tourism.

A smart home is one designed and built to a standard that few NZ houses meet. We talk to three design specialists about building small, efficient, warm, smart homes.

Keeping it in the family, two talented Picton creatives share a love of hand-crafted work with individual pieces that take fierce focus and many hours to make.

Whanau, film, theatre, love and Neapolitan sauce are paramount in the lives of a super-creative couple who have masterminded the revival of Italian cinema in Aotearoa.

Ruth Paul is a children’s book writer and illustrator who shares her semi-rural lifestyle with her husband, sons, dog Teddy, and other wandering wildlife. She’s also just won Best Picture Book at the recent Children and Young Adult Book Awards.

From deep-fried chicken to fine-dining foams, and from family man to food warrior, this New York-based New Zealand chef loves his kai – in more ways than one.

Jumping off a cliff was a free-to-be-me revelation for a one-time middle manager who ditched the boardroom for the brushes.

An Oamaru couple play with wild yeasts and wild ideas in a low-ceilinged cavern where they brew Belgian-inspired ales that could put hairs on the chest.

Five generations of a Central Otago family have tilled soil, trained trees, and fought the forces of nature and political upheaval to sustain a lifestyle they love.

Behind the scenes at the September/ October issue of NZ Life & Leisure cover shoot at Hortensia House.

Wellington poet Chris Tse delivers a special poem for National Poetry Day from his collection He's So MASC.

A young Wellington couple talk about designing and building their first home, a tiny house on wheels, and reveal what it’s really like to live in a whare iti in winter.

Ice cream and photography were the unlikely stepping stones that led a couple to a house among the trees and into the exotic-flower business.

A custard-coloured Impala has had a string of owners over the decades but has now found her sweet spot – her forever home.

Rare books with adventure and action tucked into their pages have found a home which restless spirits of all kinds will appreciate in Oamaru.