Plettenberg Bay, a seaside town on the Garden Route is a pleasure dome of leisure activities. With signature beaches, nature reserves, indigenous forests, exotic birds, elephants, and marine wild it’s one of those rare places in the Western Cape that evokes inspiration, and implores us to go out, seek and discover. A recent guest describes it as unbelievably restorative. “You are in the midst of all the most health-giving elements which combined with the glamour of the house, tips you into another realm.”
This stonkingly-sculptured piece with its visual staccato is perfectly placed between sand dune, sky and sea. The horizon just a cuticle of pink. Designed by the famously outré adventure architects, Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens, and inspired by headline names such as Frank Lloyd Wright, it is what it says on the tin: a beach house that parlays with a safari lodge.
This world-class retreat is surrounded by 150 acres of untamed land and is lavish with sensitively-sourced luxury. “The real luxury for people who stay here is complete privacy,” says the owner, a global business tycoon. “All the furniture is organic and relates to both landscape and house. It is all about peace and harmony.” Although it has show stopping potential and Hollywood glamour with its 30m swimming pool, gym, helicopter pad and spa. It is soft on the senses with lacunas of bare space that showcase famous artists such as Zaha Hadid, who was a personal friend of the owner’s.
Seaside safari
Accommodation consists of 3 inter-leading bedrooms (two double, one single) with en suite bathrooms, good for kids. A huge master bedroom with seating area and His and Her bathrooms, and a further guest double bedroom with bathroom. There is an art gallery and playroom with a cinematic screen. The beautiful landscape is shaped as the lines of the house rise and fall, arch and curve, flowing into different perspectives from every angle.
Keurbooms, Plett’s beaches and all of the nature routes are within easy distance from the property. There’s fishing, cycling, diving, or even the occasional airborne escapade. Marine boat tours, swimming with seals, an impressive number of animal sanctuaries (wild cats, monkeys, birds, snakes), windsurfing, tree-top adventures, sky diving, golf and polo. But you don’t have to leave The Space House to be entertained, active, connected to nature, and one another.
Edited by Colleen Ogilvie