FAMILY FOOTPRINT
How a century-old heritage building in Joburg’s historic suburb of Parktown became the perfect family home
WHEN Heidi Arenstein told her husband, Selwyn, that she had “found the most amazing street” on Johannesburg’s Parktown ridge, neither of them realised they would soon be taking on a 100-year-old home — and a heritage restoration project that would span nearly a decade.
Even though Heidi and Selwyn have worked in “the business” for 25 years — they are the owners of iconic local kitchen, furniture and homeware design brand Future Classics — the restoration and rebuilding had to be done with painstaking care, completed “section by section”.
“We’ve been here for seven years,” Heidi says [Selwyn says nine], “during most of which we’ve been building it.” Selwyn explains that, when they bought the property on which they now live (with their four children), the house was “a bit derelict. The kids were heartbroken. We moved from a great house in Linksfield to a building site.”
Making matters more complicated was the age and location of the home — which, even though it had no specific historical value, was much older than 60 years and fell under the Heritage Act, which required the Arensteins to develop comprehensive restoration plans (managed by Heidi’s mother, architect Ruth Lipschitz) in consultation with local heritage agencies.
“We had to keep the footprint of the house,” Heidi explains, which meant no significant changes to the shape and layout of the home. In addition, they had to install wooden window frames (in keeping with the original building, and the area) and even retain the old clay-tiled roof – no mean feat, because the company that manufactured the original roof tiles had closed nearly five decades before (eventually the couple salvaged roof tiles from a damaged property in Durban).
The Arensteins also had to find stonemasons and carpenters capable of working with a mix of old and new materials and producing (heritage) appropriate surfaces and finishes, which were largely done by hand. All the stone used on the house – on the front and rear facades, the terraces and the driveway — was salvaged during a cleanup of the lower koppie.
“When you work on a project long enough, the right people surface,” says Selwyn. And when they couldn’t find the “right people”, they filled in the gaps themselves: Selwyn went on
“I’m quite pure about it,” homeowner Heidi Arenstein says of her aesthetic. “Also, we don’t like too much stuff”
a course so he could install the kitchen’s automation system on his own, for example.
The Parktown home also changed how the family lived and interacted with each other. At the start of the restorations all six of them moved into the relatively compact staff quarters (which had been the first building they had renovated), where they lived together and shared a single bathroom.
“We kept that closeness, even when we moved in [to the main house],” says Heidi. “We became very close-knit as a result. Now we all just live in our kitchen,” she adds, smiling, “even though the kids have their own spaces to go to.”
“We work like this, together, all the time,” says Selwyn. “Heidi is the creator. I’m the one who makes it happen.”
When it came to furnishing the home, the Arensteins stuck to the simple, classic lines of their own designs, filling the house with “the items we sell”.
Selwyn and Heidi explain they also do “a lot of prototyping” in their home, building and testing new furniture designs before these go into production for their stores.
“I’m quite pure about it,” Heidi says of her aesthetic. “There’s almost nothing here that looks old that isn’t. Also, we don’t like too much stuff,” she adds.
This clean, contemporary approach was extended to the home’s new floors, which they lowered (on the ground floor) to add height to the old rooms and finished in a lovely ashen oak instead of the more traditional yellow Oregon pine.
Selwyn says they often “can’t believe we actually live here”. Not a surprising sentiment when you are standing on the back stoep with its spectacular views north and terraced gardens below, now planted with fruit trees whose produce, the couple say, they never get to eat: “The birds take it all.”
But this doesn’t mean it’s where the Arensteins see themselves staying forever, particularly as their children get older and leave home.
“Our next house will definitely be modern,” Heidi says, with a smile. “We’re always ready to do the next one. Maybe something modern ... at the beach.”