The moment I walk through the ancient Japanese temple gates and into the foyer of Split Apple Retreat I start to relax. I have left my worries on the rack at the front door along with my shoes and stepped into the peaceful world of Lee and Pen Nelson.

This exclusive 3-bed retreat is in the hills above Nelson, NZ, but it feels as if I've been jetted directly to Japan. The design is Shinto temple chic with a modern twist. No wonder the day I check-in NZ Architectural Digest are also there to judge whether the property should win best NZ architectural design of the year.

However the appeal of Split Apple Retreat isn't just its design but the serenity of the space.

The view is everywhere, flowing into the house like a breeze, "we like to bring the outside in, says owner Lee. "Japanese design is all about pure clean lines, we want everything here to flow".

I am welcomed with green tea which I drink in a lounge hung with 18^th and 19^th century Japanese paintings from Kyoto and decorated with Burmese antique carvings. Through the wide open windows the bay is a watercolour of muted grey and the rounded hills of the Abel Tasman National Park are cloaked in a gentle veil of mist. It is the perfect day to arrive, as if the landscape and the weather were in tune with the peace and quiet of the retreat.

Wife Pen is the chef creating organic meals that taste so delicious it is hard to believe they are good for you. While all the food at Split Apple is organic and smoking is banned there is also extraordinary wine cellar. I spot a Château Lafite Rothschild label or ten in the climate controlled space, as well as local New Zealand wines from the Marlborough and Nelson regions. This is the kind of cellar that Lee's many high profile, high rolling guests appreciate when they come here to reconnect with the simpler side of life.

Split Apple walks the fine line between wellness retreat and luxury lodge and balances on the tightrope perfectly. Not an easy trick to perform.

My bedroom has a traditional Japanese style bathroom; the kind where you pour water over yourself to wash before soaking in the clean water of a stone bath. Beyond the sliding glass doors drops of rain dot my wooden deck, a stone pathway leads through a Japanese garden down to a lower deck and beyond that is the sublime view.

Just looking at a view like this each day would make you feel good but for those that need a little more help there are also health checks, nutrition courses, mediation, yoga, beauty therapies, and shiatsu. Or you can simply relax in the steam room, or sauna or, best of all, the outdoor onsen.

On my last morning I sit in the onsen looking out at the landscape as delicately hued as one of Lee's Japanese paintings and feel a sense of complete relaxation. Pen brings me a glass of water and tells me that she likes to sit here at night when the stars are little needle points of light, or on a full moon when the whole bay is silver.

Check in: Split Apple Retreat, 195 Tokongawa Drive, RD2 Motueka, Tasman 7197,New Zealand

Ultimate Luxury: Staying a month

Most Indulgent Moment: Sitting in the onsen-with-a view

Junior Luxies: Not real appropriate for the little ones, unless you take the whole retreat

Dress code: You'll be wearing a traditonal Yakata (Japense robe) for much of the time.

Dent in the platinum:

Luxury Resorts Link: www.splitappleretreat.com