Brett Muir

People’s fascination with castles dates back thousands of years. Even today, our popular culture is saturated with timeless fairy tales and magical heroic stories filled with castles. Very young children love movies such as Frozen. As adults, video games, books and movies such as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings continue to entertain us with their castle-rich mix of history and mythology.  Likewise, many global travellers have had their own opportunity to explore ancient castles during European holidays.

Papamoa resident, Brett Muir, has been building sandcastles for the past 20 years. Starting when he was a father with young children, over time, sandcastle building has become Brett’s passion. The turning point in his hobby came in 2013 when he won a national sandcastle competition hosted by Hyundai New Zealand, with the grand prize of the use of a car for one year.  Two years later Brett won the Individual and People’s Choice categories at the 2015 New Zealand Sandcastle Competition at Sumner Beach in Christchurch.  Since that time, he has won various regional sand sculpture competitions. 

During Covid lockdowns in 2020 and again in 2021, Brett created castles carved with inspirational messages on Papamoa Beach.  Photos of these were shared widely in people’s online conversations with friends on social media. Brett’s whimsical pop-up creations are the first time many New Zealanders have experienced such tall and intricately detailed sandcastles. Invariably, curious beachgoers want to know how the castles are engineered to defy gravity when they are built out of nothing but beach sand.  Brett began fielding regular requests for lessons in sandcastle building, and in response, created King of the Castle Sandart. 

Brett’s hands-on Mount Maunganui and Papamoa-based lessons are designed to assist novice builders to create impressive castles of their own using minimal equipment, while learning a range of hand-stacking and sand sculpting techniques that they can replicate on future visits to the beach.

Brett’s work has been written up in various New Zealand magazines and newspapers, and he has had guest appearances creating sandcastles for TV programs including What Now, and The Block.