This week’s location is a magnificent house in Hout Bay, surrounded by thatch from the highveld, driftwood from the coast and stunning mountain granite.
It’s a house with Africa in its bones and that’s why it feels like home. Given a landscape like this, Andreas and Clare Lobert decided to build a home of understated elegance and to make the most of the setting by complimenting, not competing with it. Under the thatch, various types of stone and timber combine with neutral interiors.
The stone clad fireplace is the hero with a root-timber coffee table for character. A hearth and breakfast corner bring a cosy charm to an impressive kitchen where Clare often has a winter casserole going and where her trio of daughters all love to bake. Form meets function as the staircase in stone and subtle ironwork also flanks the dining room and houses the wine cellar. Stephen Forster’s architecture is set in a garden by Nicholas Whitehorn and is like a scene from a children’s storybook!
