The billionaire Peter Thiel’s plans for an elaborate bunker-like lodge in a remote part of New Zealand’s South Island have been thwarted, after the local council decided the home would have too great a negative impact on the surrounding landscape. Second Star, a New Zealand company owned by the PayPal co-founder, had applied to build the sprawling lakeside complex in Wanaka, an alpine South Island region known for its natural beauty and isolation. The plans were fiercely opposed by conservationists, who claimed in submissions that the lodge would “destroy our beautiful lake environment”. On Thursday, Queenstown-Lakes district council refused to grant consent for the lodge to be built. Thiel – an outspoken libertarian and early Facebook investor – is one of a number of super-rich speculators who began buying up remote boltholes in New Zealand, in preparation for apocalyptic social, political or environmental disintegration. He had previously discussed flying out to the country as a backup plan in the event of a pandemic, or global societal collapse, his friend the entrepreneur Sam Altman told the New Yorker in 2016. Architectural drawings show an undulating building, embedded in the hillside and partly hidden from view. Consent documents described “a series of stand-alone buildings, including a lodge for visitor accommodation for up to 24 guests, accommodation pod for the owner, together with associated lodge management buildings, infrastructure, landscape treatment, water features and meditation space”. Plans for the meditation pod were scrapped from the final proposal, but the earthworks required to build the lodge would still cover more than 73,700 sq metres (18 acres) of land. The structure was designed by the Japanese architects Kengo Kuma and Associates, who created the Tokyo Olympic stadium. Thiel’s proposal was to build the lodge at Mount Alpha, which is classed as an “outstanding natural landscape” in New Zealand, and subject to special protections. Independent commissioners who reviewed the consent on behalf of council wrote that when they visited the site, “all members were shocked at the frequency at which substantial parts of the proposal would be in plain and direct view”. “The proposal will include a large, very long building that … will substantially detract from the quality and naturalness of the outstanding natural landscape … in the context of the Mt Alpha [landscape] they are not appropriate,” they wrote. Representatives of Second Star argued that the architects “designed the proposal to blend the buildings into the undulating landscape” that surrounded them and that the lodge would “create high-end accommodation in the region, whereby the economic benefits reach across the district and beyond”. The council received a number of submissions from residents and environmental groups opposed to the lodge being built, or requested changes to plans. In one submission, a local resident, John Sutton, said the lodge would “destroy our beautiful lake environment”. In another, the Upper Clutha Environmental Society said the site was “wholly within and surrounded by … landscape of national importance” and the development was “likely to cause significant adverse physical changes”. Thiel gained New Zealand citizenship in 2011, despite spending just 12 days in the country. The usual route to citizenship requires applicants to be in the country as a permanent resident for at least 1,350 days in five years – but the government waived the requirement on the basis of his entrepreneurial and philanthropic activities. The decision was only publicly revealed in 2017 and proved highly controversial in New Zealand. More recently, Thiel has emerged as an increasingly powerful and controversial figure in US politics, using his fortune to pump tens of millions into the campaigns of candidates aligned to Donald Trump’s agenda in the midterm elections. The Guardian has approached representatives of Second Star for comment.