Sargood Drive, Wanaka · Four-Star · #3 in Wanaka
Edgewater Wānaka
The town's lakefront resort, a peninsula of hotel rooms and self-catered apartments on the water's edge, two kilometres along Sargood Drive from the central village.
The town's lakefront resort, a peninsula of hotel rooms and self-catered apartments on the water's edge, two kilometres along Sargood Drive from the central village.
"Edgewater is the lake from your window, the one Wanaka address where the alarm clock you want is the sound of the cormorants on the jetty. Hotel rooms for short stays, two-bedroom apartments for the family week, and tennis courts that the locals use too."
Edgewater is the long-running lakefront resort at the head of the Wanaka township, on a green peninsula at 54 Sargood Drive that the property has held since the early 1980s. The address is the proposition: at the eastern edge of Roys Bay, two kilometres from the village centre along a flat cycle path, with the Treble Cone and Cardrona ski-area shuttles passing the front door. The lake is at the foot of the property line; the Crown Range and the Buchanan Mountains run across the western horizon.
The accommodation runs in two product lines. The hotel rooms, standard, lake view, and lake-front studio, are arranged in a low double-storey wing on the lake side; the apartments are one-, two- and three-bedroom self-catered units in a separate complex that share the lakeside grounds. The hotel rooms suit two- and three-night stays; the apartments make sense from four nights upward, particularly for families who want a kitchen and laundry on a week-long Wanaka holiday. All units have been progressively refurbished over the past five years and most lakeside categories have a private balcony or terrace.
The on-site Bistro at Edgewater is the all-day restaurant, breakfast for the hotel, lunch for the cycle-path crowd, and a competent contemporary New Zealand dinner menu with a Central Otago, dominant wine list. The bar at Bistro is the lake-view evening room with one of the better lakefront sunset positions in town. The wider grounds include two tennis courts (also used by Wanaka Tennis Club), a sauna, a games room, kayak and SUP hire on the foreshore, and direct access to the lake-edge walking and cycle path that runs all the way to the town centre.
Edgewater is not the most rarefied option in Wanaka, Whare Kea and Mahu Whenua occupy that level, but it is the property the town itself most often recommends to first-time visitors, and the address that handles every variant: a quick two-night stop on a South Island road trip, a five-day family ski week with two children and a kitchen, a quiet anniversary weekend in the lake-front studio, a runner's solo retreat with the path out the front door. The combination of lakefront and walkable distance to town is not actually duplicated by any other Wanaka hotel of comparable scale.
The two- and three-bedroom apartments are Wanaka's most practical family ski-week base, a kitchen for the breakfast-and-dinner rhythm, a laundry for the snow gear, the cycle path from the front door, and the morning shuttle to Cardrona and Treble Cone outside the lobby. Tennis courts, kayaks and the foreshore walk give the kids the rest-day options. The property handles cot beds, high chairs and shopping pre-orders without fuss.
A quiet Wanaka anniversary in a lake-front studio is the version this property does best, the sunset over the Buchanan Mountains, dinner at Bistro on a corner table, the lake-edge walk to town the next day. The hotel will arrange a fly-fishing guide for the morning and a private boat outing in summer for the milestone day.
A Wanaka solo week works at Edgewater because the property scale gives you anonymity and the lake-edge path gives you the run, six kilometres of flat lakeside to town and back, a swim from the property jetty in summer, a sauna at day's end. The single occupancy rate in the lake-view hotel rooms is the most reasonable in town for what you get.
54 Sargood Drive
Wanaka 9305
New Zealand
Central Wanaka 2 km (5 minutes by car, 25 minutes by foot via lake path); Cardrona Alpine Resort 35 minutes; Treble Cone 25 minutes; Queenstown Airport 60 minutes
Hotel rooms and 1, 3 bedroom apartments
Hotel Room from NZD 250/night
Lake View Studio from NZD 340/night
Two-Bedroom Apartment from NZD 510/night
Three-Bedroom Apartment from NZD 750/night
Check-in: 2:00 PM
Check-out: 10:00 AM
Phone: +64 3 443 0011
Founded early 1980s; lakefront refurbishment 2021, 2024
Direct lake-front position
Bistro at Edgewater (all-day dining)
Two tennis courts, sauna, games room
Kayak and SUP hire on-site
Lake-edge cycle/walking path to town
Ski-shuttle pick-up at the lobby
From NZD 250/night. December to February summer and July to early September ski season are peak; book three months ahead for lake-view rooms and apartments in school holidays.
Book This Hotel →The Myer family's six-suite lakeside exclusive-use lodge plus a heli-only alpine chalet at 1,750 m.
Five suites on a 55,000-hectare private conservation project between Wanaka and Queenstown.
Four rooms and two suites on ten acres south of town, Wanaka's classic five-star bed-and-breakfast.