Castle in the Sky
ELEVATED ON TONNES OF SOIL, THIS STUNNING HOME IN CAPE TOWN FLOATS ABOVE ITS SURROUNDING VINEYARDS AND THE MOUNTAINS BEYOND
Perched on an elevated plot, this home in Cape Town floats above the surrounding mountains and vineyards
When Matt and Victoria Bresler first went to see the site of their house-to-be in the Constantia Valley, bordering Cape Town’s historic Groot Constantia wine estate, it was due to a photograph the husband had seen in the property pages of the newspaper, which showed three palm trees and a hint of vineyard in the background. “The house wasn’t even in the photograph,” he says—and when he got there, he suddenly understood why not. “I spent two or three minutes inside the house and an hour on the roof, just looking at the view.”
STARTING ANEW
The couple were settling in Cape Town with their three children: Jonty, Hannah and Ollie. After a decade of work and travel abroad, they were looking for a new home. Bresler soon realised that to do justice to those views, they would have to build from scratch. Built in the 1980s, the existing house was sunk low into the plot, with no views to speak of or with any sense of connection to its remarkable setting, while trees and large bushes all along the fence cut the house off from its potential views.
Architects Jan-heyn Vorster and Tiaan Meyer designed the new house. Vorster says the suburban vineyard-side setting is “magnificent—and then, obviously, the views of the mountain beyond are beautiful.” While it’s an acre (43,560sqft) in size, the stand forms an asymmetrical triangle, so it shares an unusually long 130-metre border with the vineyard. If the plot had been square, to find yourself with a border of that length, Bresler explains, “you’d normally need four acres.”
ELEVATED PERSPECTIVE
Before they even considered the design of the house, Vorster and Meyer had to figure out how to create the potential views Bresler had begun to sense after his rooftop excursion. “We went to quite a bit of trouble during the planning phase to assure we maximised the home’s potential for views,” recalls Vorster. “Matt spent a lot of time on the old site on carefully measured ladder rungs, surveying views from a standing and seated position.” The solution: to raise the level of the ground. “We brought in a lot of soil to bring the house up to a level that took full advantage of the vineyard views,” says Vorster. At the same time, he was aware of how vital it would be for the house to integrate with its site. “You have to come up with clever landscaping solutions to bring the site back up to the house so that it doesn’t feel like an apartment in the air and that it’s actually still a family home, with seamless connection to the gardens and pool.”
SCENIC STEPS
An additional factor was the awareness that people are allowed to walk in the vineyards along the property’s edge. “It was also important for the scale of the building to be quite sensitive,” says Vorster. They didn’t want to blight the setting with a selfish lump on the landscape, so they decided to set the house as far back on the stand as they could. From the back of the house, it appears as a double-storey; from the vineyards, however, it’s a long, low-slung, ground-hugging form with two mono-pitch flip-up roofs over the living areas. From the front door, you ascend via a staircase in a glass box. On the upper level, the living areas are to one side and the bedroom wing to the other. The stairway creates a kind of procession, as Vorster puts it. “The building creates views—moments when you
pause to turn and look back,” he explains. “The sea is seen to the south over False Bay as you ascend the stairs and the beautiful, naturalistic gardens come right up to the house. Once you’ve reached the top of the stairs, the house’s expansive vista to the north, over the vineyards towards the mountains, reveals itself. The elevated positioning means you get no sense of this setting when you first arrive, so it’s often quite a surprise for guests.”
MATERIAL DETAILS
An off-shutter concrete wall is the most definitive architectural feature here. “Lots of effort went into getting that wall beautifully cast, using sand-blasted spruce to impart a wood-grain finish to the concrete,” says Vorster, adding that the materials used in the house were important throughout. Much of the facade at the back of the house is clad in western red cedar, while inside, the concrete of the ceilings, pillars and ringbeams is softened with wood—including the
solid oak flooring, the cedar ceilings of the angled roofs in the living areas and much of the interior oak joinery. Untreated cedar, which weathers to grey over time, is also used for slatted entrance gates, window screens, the front door and the pergola. “It was Victoria’s idea to design bespoke window facades made entirely of cedar for the children’s bedrooms,” says Bresler.
ROOMS WITH VIEWS
The north-facing aspect of the house (toward the vineyards) is mostly glass. Its two flip-up roofs impart a sense of character, while the bedroom wing is angled inward to hug the gardens. The bedrooms form a stepped, zig-zag arrangement to allow for views in two directions, and to catch the light from both the northern and western sunset. This idea came from Bresler’s brother-inlaw during a site visit in the planning phase. The bedroom wing is flat-roofed, which makes it less conspicuous, and it floats on a raised platform. Meanwhile, below the living areas, the ground drops away more radically— the architects used this “natural void” and populated it with the guest suite, wine cellar, staff accommodation and various services, including garages.
MODERN CHARACTER
The interiors essentially form another layer of the architecture, rather than functioning merely as containers for furniture. “You can’t separate the interior design and the architecture from each other,” says Vorster. “From the beginning, we considered how the architecture and fixed furnishings would connect and fit together.” For example, the unit between the kitchen and the living space is an extension of the architecture, concealing a TV and a fireplace, and the other side forms a coffee station including the couple’s collection of espresso cups. “The building was basically quite neutral,” says Vorster. “The furniture, furnishings, decorations and art is where there is distinct character and colour.” This includes local design, much of it influenced by Mid-century Modernism, such as the sofas, coffee table and dining room table from Mezzanine Interiors in Johannesburg. There are also some refurbished vintage items, much of which is also made with natural wood. “I guess we like clean lines and Scandi stuff,” says Bresler, who is quick to point out that he is by no means a minimalist. On extensive travels in his 20s and early 30s, he always filled his backpack with carefully selected artefacts, such as masks, statues and other items unique to the countries he visited. “It has been challenging—but fun—to try and balance my
desire to display these hard-sought, memory-steeped items with our desire for a minimalist look,” says Bresler. “I wanted to display the things that I love and feel passionate about.” He and Victoria have also collected art and artefacts on their travels together. “For example, we now have a set of 14 little etchings in the passageway,” he says. “There was a great deal of satisfaction that we both got from pulling those out of boxes, agreeing on the framing, then hanging and enjoying them.”
PLANTING LIFE
Outside, the landscaping and planting help to blend the house, its landscape and its views. “I think what’s actually key to the success of the whole building is the integration with the landscape and the landscape design,” says Vorster. “It would have been a very different building if that wasn’t as well-resolved.” Landscape designer Mary Maurel worked closely with the couple on the planting, first by removing trees and other vegetation on the border that blocked the view to the vineyard. She devised a layered approach with naturalistic gardens around the house, progressing via a wide-open lawn to a fynbos bed along the border. This approach creates gentle transitions from architecture to landscape, and cleverly blurs the boundaries between the property and the vineyards, borrowing the extensive views. “It really sometimes feels as if the vineyard belongs to this property,” says Vorster. A passionate plantsman, Bresler brought in more than 200 trees, both indigenous and exotic, with a focus on prolifically flowering trees. “I’ve brought in many saplings from trips abroad and am currently rearing from seed some of the exciting species I can’t find in the country,” he says. There’s also a gate in the fence leading directly onto the vineyards, so the couple can walk their dogs there. When Bresler goes jogging in the vineyards, he always slows to a walk for the 130-metre stretch bordering his property so he can take a good look at the gardens and the house through the Clearvu fence. “When I’m not focused on some weeds that need removing, I feel a great sense of pride.”