Sir Michael remembered as ‘great visionary'
The founder of Michael Hill Jewellers died at his home in Arrowtown after battling cancer.
He was remembered yesterday by friends and colleagues as "highly intelligent", "very philanthropic" and a "great visionary".
Sir Michael founded Michael Hill Jewellers in his home city of Whangarei in 1979 — it now has 291 stores spread across New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
How he ended up in the business is a testament to the expression, "life begins at 40".
Hating school, where he was bullied, he left at the age of 16 with the intention of becoming a concert violinist.
Told he had left his run too late, he worked for 23 years in his uncle's jewellery business where he showed his marketing flair by winning an international window-dressing competition.
It is also where he met his future wife, Christine, who hailed from England.
In 1977, the couple, who by then had children Mark and Emma, lost everything they owned when their newly-built mansion burnt down, though Sir Michael managed to retrieve Christine's jewellery and his violin.
That night he wrote on a card: "I'm gonna own my uncle's business or I'm going to leave him and start alone".
When his uncle would not sell, he and Christine set up a store nearby, Christine's artistic skills and his own marketing flair — which verged on zany — coming to the fore from their early days.
After the chain took off, the family relocated to the Gold Coast before shifting to Queenstown about 1994, after originally going there to learn to ski.
They then bought a former deer farm bordering Arrowtown, now known as The Hills, where Sir Michael initially developed a chip-and-putt course before commissioning golf course architect John Darby to turn it into a championship 18-holer.
Having been granted three years' rights to host the New Zealand Open, the course opened just in time for the first one in 2007.
When the Open was then shifted to Christchurch, Sir Michael held the New Zealand PGA Championship tournament with a pro-am component.
In 2014, The Hills and neighbour Millbrook were granted the right to jointly host the New Zealand Open, that tournament also adopting the pro-am format.
That arrangement carried on until The Hills' involvement ended in 2020.
While he can be credited with saving the New Zealand Open, Sir Michael also initiated a huge event, the Michael Hill International Violin Competition, which has run every two years since 2001 in Queenstown and Auckland.
It has launched careers for many young violinists around the world and been rated among the world's foremost violin competitions.
Sir Michael, who also hosted many recitals by top classical musicians, revealed his artistic streak by turning The Hills into a sculpture park.
He was also a prolific cartoonist, putting out a book of cartoons in 2019, the year he also started producing weekly cartoons for Queenstown's Mountain Scene newspaper.
In 2007, he launched plans for 17 bunker homes at The Hills, but abandoned the idea.
However, after an agreement in 2023 with the American interests behind the North Island's Tara Iti and Te Arai golf courses, plans are afoot to develop visitor and residential accommodation at The Hills and also expand its golf offering.
Sir Michael's many honours included induction into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame in 2006, becoming Ernst & Young NZ Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008 and being knighted in 2011.
Early this year he hit his first hole-in-one — 72 years after taking up the game — and he and Christine celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.
Fittingly, that is the diamond anniversary.
Former Queenstown mayor Jim Boult said Sir Michael was an enormously valuable member of the community.
"He was highly intelligent, always amusing, very philanthropic and enormously interested in the arts."
He had been friends with Sir Michael for more than 30 years since he arrived in the Queenstown Lakes district.
Sir Michael was a "highly engaging person" to talk with, Mr Boult said.
He had a lot of respect and admiration for the fact Sir Michael was a self-made man.
New Zealand Open chairman John Hart said Sir Michael was "absolutely crucial" to its success.
"I have a long association and huge respect for Sir Michael as a great visionary in business and sport.
As a businessman, Sir Michael was very fair.
"He was someone who wanted to do things differently and that sort of clicked with me because we were trying to create something different."
An obituary will follow.
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