The setting of Ficus House is gasp beautiful and the surrounding farm, in the Franschhoek valley, has a distinct sense of wilderness under wide skies. Your neighbours are the majestic Simonsberg, endless rugged koppies and crowds of fynbos, and the dinner bell is also sometimes used to shoo off curious baboons. Entertainment is a dramatic all-day dance of light on the layered mountains, while the view from every window is pure art – natural watercolour paintings are wherever you look. 

Step inside, and it’s like entering a rich uncle’s house. Everything is comfortable and welcoming, yet so refreshing and contemporary. Eclectic décor is a blend of ‘Cape Dutch meets Arts and Crafts meets industrial’ with accents of raw concrete and iron, blended with fresh colours from surrounding fynbos and proteas. The house is designed for a merged inside-outside experience, and is reminiscent of the owner’s childhood in Sri Lanka. It’s a study of flow and unfettered living.

The energy here is extraordinary too, with an old-fashioned quality woven throughout in the understated fabrics, four-poster beds, reed ceilings behind rafters, and natural wooden floors. It looks like generations have lived here happily and left their collections of copper pots, dinner bells and wooden candlesticks for others to enjoy in a new way. There’s a dinner gong too – Adams family style.

In the main house, are five bedrooms: Orchard and Mountain bedrooms upstairs and Garden bedroom downstairs, each with its own bathroom. Then there’s also Courtyard Suite and Valley Suite, both en-suite and with their own entrance. But regardless of where you are, 360 degree views prevail down the valley, along the koppies and up the mountain – all unpunctuated. The languid 25-metre long pool subtly connects the pool barn, dining barn and the main house and invites summer dips under open skies, while at the same time enhancing the gentle symmetry of the collective house.  

Wherever you may go during the day, do be sure to make it home by sunset. More breathtakingly beautiful or dramatic a sunset you will not see. Allow the butler to pour you a tall, cool sundowner, laze on the ‘sunset terrace’ or kick back in the pool, but be there for the evening opera of golden light. It’s other worldly and simply awe inspiring – something that will be forever etched in your mind, and to which you will wish to return as soon as possible. 

What we love:

• so many fruit trees and the abundant vegetable garden
• the superbly appointed kitchen
• the round-shaped fireplace in the dining barn
• numerous nooks and corners for relaxation and escape
• quirky pineapple and owl bedside lamps
• the very comfortable beds
• no neighbours

Need to know:

• there’s excellent internet and cell phone coverage
• with the 25-meter long uncovered pool, and many steps, the house is not child friendly
• Ficus House sleeps 11
• it’s 45 minutes from Cape Town and 10 minutes from all the amenities and restaurants in Franschhoek