Set in the heart of a dramatic private wilderness featuring indigenous fynbos, old forests and sweeping plains, Bobbejaanskloof’s distinctly African feel is felt the moment you settle on the wide farmhouse verandah overlooking the grasslands with flat-topped acacias. Yet, just a twenty-minute drive away, Plettenberg Bay offers everything you’d expect from one of South Africa’s most sophisticated, and popular holiday spots along the Garden Route.
Everything about Bobbejaanskloof makes sense in the South African context. As the focus of the property, the four-bedroom, three-bathroom farmhouse is everything you’d expect of a homestead designed in the local vernacular style and built to give the impression that it’s always been there.
Across the courtyard the recently added family suite sensitively blends in with the older structure and feels just as time-worn. The farmhouse has those deep stoeps that face onto unimaginably distant views. The walls are washed a bone colour, the shuttered sash windows are a contrasting mahogany, and the roofs are tin.
Come the rain, that pattering is one of Africa’s most characteristic sounds, which, for many old Africa hands, conjures up memories of a childhood spent out in the wilds. But come the sunshine, those deep stoeps provide welcome respite from the heat of the day. They’re furnished so that life led outside is as comfortable as it is indoors. There are sofas out here, deep armchairs, storm lanterns and woven rugs.
Everywhere you look, both in and out, there’s an elemental style to the materials chosen, from the rough roof beams to the latte ceilings, the polished elephant-grey cement floors to the Nguni hides dotted about on them. Baskets, wicker and riempie define the look of Bobbejaanskloof, as does the muted colour scheme.
Everywhere there’s an obsession with nature, its textures and patterns. And there are scrubbed wooden bowls, brass lamps, raffia shades, heavy, handmade glass, armchairs dressed in rough linen slipcovers – it’s that ‘I had a farm in Africa’ look, only this time it’s South Africa in the spotlight.
The decor mixes by interior designer Gregory Mellor are brave, the look iconic – it reflects a lifestyle synonymous with South Africa’s. It’s relaxed and laid back, and is freed from that old-world-and-its-obsession-with-social–hierarchies feel. The range and diversity of what it is that makes this house so peculiarly local are enormous and a stay here is as much about absorbing its style as it is enjoying its pristine surroundings.
Best of old and new
Bobbejaanskloof’s owner understands provenance: the old cupboards, the campaign chests and the four-posters might well have arrived on a wagon. She gets the context: this is a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, tailored for contemporary living.
So life led here is informal. In the kitchen at the heart of the house a huge table invites long lunches or dinners while you cook. Sink into a leather-covered armchair in front of the fire and down a whisky. Or run a bath in one of the deep tubs in bathrooms kitted out for contemporary living. If your family is as large as those of generations past, the three bedroom Nguni Cottage is just 900m from the farmhouse.
In a land filled with space and gorgeous sunlight, the owners of Bobbejaanskloof are able to break the rules and invent new ones, blur boundaries and conjure surprise after surprise. They’ve taken the best of the old and refashioned it with what’s current and relevant.
Bobbejaanskloof review, Paul Duncan; Images Greg Cox