It’s innate directive of barefoot strolling and alfresco feasting is the stuff of sweltering, hot summer days leading into nights and long, extended weekends.
With its cordial community and secure leafy lanes adjoining pathways that mark the way to the beach, it takes the notion of a weekend getaway in the city almost international. Without the passport.
Perched above a milkwood forest, as you enter the Blue House through a sturdy antique Indian door, the seascape views instantly floods the cooking, living and dining level that is one continuous space leading onto an expansive outdoor deck.
A downstairs little kitchenette, a cinema room and kids room all lead out to another tiered deck with plenty of comfy recliners that scatter themselves around the heated overflow swimming pool that verges into the ocean.
Allowing the atmosphere of the beach’s activities and the waves curling the shoreline to shimmy their way up onto the deck and into your day. Upstairs to the top level where a low-sunken mattress, a fire-pit, some flourishing herb and vegetable patches and a long granite table occupy yet another sweeping deck that is the extension of more ensuite bedrooms – fit for a family of eight.
Each room is serenely simple and liberatingly functional with its space, giving this family hideaway a sense of entirety and separation simultaneously. Soft furnishings set upon the white-washed wooden floors, with the occasional antique objects and ornaments weaving the rooms together in the most unpretentious home away from home manner.
Beachfront accommodation close to the city
Blue House all about the beachy breeziness in the Cape’s most favoured of coves. Where multigenerational families will gather to unpack their sarongs and suncream, leisurely saunter down to the waves through the almost private walkway, and return to an inviting, familiar space of contained comfort. A perfect hideaway that holds those memories of Mediterranean holidays where the blue waters are an ever-constant filter on each snap. Ice-creams are on the daily menu.
Beach sand never quite leaves the crevices of our toes. Billie Holiday and Nina Simone seem to be on repeat throughout the hours of the day. And there’s no telling when you think you might feel the need to pack-up and return to city-dwelling. That’s just a quick cruise around the mountain – should you have to.
Reviewed by Colleen Ogilvie
Edited by Dawn Kennedy