Not coincidentally, there’s a touch of HBO’s Westworld, minus the violence.

“On a typical weekend, people arrive—we encourage them to bring cowboy clothing, but we also have a costume department—and then we give them a town tour,” Bartley says. “Next we strap holsters on everyone and give them a gun, and everyone grows about six inches when they put that gun on.” (The weapons do not have bullets, but gas canisters make shotlike sounds; there is a real shooting range nearby.)

Typical activities include horse riding, clay pigeon shooting, archery, and walks in the bush; in the evening there’s music in the saloon and card games. Bartley says the property also has a “big cannon, which we fire at nine at night.”

Sundays entail a big breakfast, a bit of lunch, and then “it’s back to civilization,” Bartley says, noting that the staff—usually about six people—sports costumes at all times.

A package to rent the whole town for a night costs NZ$7,900; two nights come to NZ$14,900. “It’s not over the top,” Bartley says. “We should charge more.”

The Ranch
In the past three or four years, Bartley says, Manuka honey has become “like gold. I’ve started our own honey business up there, so the land has become very valuable.” Last year was a very good year, he says. “You might have a bad year next. The season has to be right for the Manuka to bloom, and when they bloom, you only have three weeks to harvest it.” The honey is supplied by about 600 hives, Bartley says, which stay on the property from November through January; the bees are taken to the coast, where it’s warmer, during the winter months.

The ranch also produces clover honey, “but it doesn’t have the value of Manuka,” Bartley says.

The ranch is accessible by road, but there is a helipad. And it’s hooked up to the electric grid and has backup generators, as well as its own water tanks and a firefighting sprinkler system.

The ranch makes good money, Bartley says, making its primary appeal that of a business, rather than as a hospitality venue. That, plus the appeal of residency status, makes his ranch a very appealing prospect. An Investor 1 Residence Visa allows businesspeople who invest NZ$10 million over three years to apply. (Residency isn’t guaranteed.)

“There are a lot of people right now thinking of getting out of the U.S., he says. “They’d have fun out here.”