RANCH RENO
A sensitive renovation to this Pretoria ranch-style house kept its character while updating it for contemporary living
“When we first saw this house, my husband just laughed,” says architect Kate Ghyoot Jollye. “He said it was just as I would have designed it.” The home in question is a ’60s ranch-style house on Pretoria’s Waterkloof Ridge with “lovely spaces, shapes and textures”.
Kate and husband Jean-Philippe lived down the road from the house for some years and drove past it often. “I’d always said that house – there’s something about it,” says Kate. When the opportunity arose to make an offer on it they did, and soon found themselves contemplating the potential of their new home with its uncomplicated, long and low-slung structure, high ceilings and exposed beams.
Kate says the distinct advantage of renovating over building from scratch is the character and sense of the past that established houses have, not to mention the trees and, if you’re lucky, the richer and more considered way in which they were built. Of course, they come with complications, too.
Along with the features that drew the couple to this house came other characteristics of its era. It had the usual hodgepodge of little rooms and poky corners that begged to be resolved and freshened up. Kate’s interventions are remarkably subtle. Some rooms required little more than fresh paint, others were cleverly joined to make bigger rooms, but the main living area was completely reconfigured, all according to the house’s original footprint. The result includes three bedrooms and Kate’s studio, which could make a fourth.
“The main thing we did was put in the massive glass sliding doors,” she says. They span the front of the house, opening it to the garden and converting the living area and new open-plan kitchen into an indooroutdoor space. “We don’t have a patio because when the doors are open you’re outside,” says Kate.
She carefully preserved the home’s best features. The knotty pine ceiling and exposed beams were carefully supported, getting nothing more than a rejuvenating lick of paint. And Kate left the stone fireplace untouched. “Some days I love it, other days I wonder if we should update it,” she says. The outdoor slate paving, which is peculiar to this style of house, was reused. (There was slate inside, too, but it was too badly damaged to preserve.) Kate even resprayed a pair of rusty 1960s outdoor light fittings and used them in the living room.
Kate and Jean-Philippe’s furnishings are an eclectic but restrained mixture of inherited antiques, vintage pieces and contemporary local design. “We’ve got a lot of sentimental pieces,” she says – old family photos, heirloom pieces such as Jean-Philippe’s grandfather’s trunk, and a silver geisha’s mirror from Kate’s grandparents, who lived in Japan for a time. The vintage Ercol lounge suite, which is well suited to the house, belonged to the home’s original owner.
There’s also a liberal sprinkling of contemporary local designer pieces. Some of them, like the sleek unit in Kate’s studio, are custom-designed by Kate herself. (She also works in commercial interior design – Ginger & Fig in Hatfield – and has a range of ceramics and home accessories under the banner Josephine Road.) There are more than a few pieces by Mia Widlake of Studio Number 19. Kate and Mia are relatives and close friends and often exhibit their designs together. “We like each other’s stuff, so we often do trades,” says Kate. The lamp in the entrance hall is a prototype of Mia’s beautiful Butler lamp.
Jean-Philippe may have been half right when he first saw the house. Now he’s completely right. Kate has resolved the spaces, updated the design and made it her own, but the character that first attracted her to the house still shines through. Now, more than ever, there is “something about it”. • ka-ad.com