COUNTRY COMFORT

Set in the barren landscape of SA’s Upper Karoo, a farmhouse elicits a sensorial experience through subtle contrasts in colour, material, form and pattern

arrival, its large glass doors welcoming one from the Karoo backdrop into the home that here hints at the texture, pattern and monochromatic scheme awaiting within. “The entrance hall is a big luxury,” smiles Cornel, “but it’s not a wasted space. It’s a room for transitioning from your journey. It tells you ‘I’m here now’.”

Beyond the entrance, behind its passage-like wall, the rectangular-shaped home is more fully revealed, its central lounge giving off to the two bedrooms on one end, and the kitchen and reading room on the other, and a stoep out back running the length of the building. “I kept my design as simple as possible,” Cornel explains of this basic layout. “I was thinking of the simplest thing anyone could have built 200 years ago in the area.”

Since the farm on which Pink Hill

Karoo stands has been formally occupied from 1830, and inhabited before that by hunter-gatherer bushmen, her approach does the heritage justice. It’s here that the Battle of Pink Hill was fought in 1900 during the AngloBoer War, and relics from this time, as well as 2, 000year-old stone tools, are often discovered by the family on walks. In the reading room a contemporary ceramic plate displays colourful broken shards of antique, found porcelain, the contradiction of old and new a deliberate undertaking.

“I like to layer with contrasts,” Cornel explains, pointing to her use of dark and light, glass and wood, round and angular forms, and shiny and matt finishes throughout the architecture and interiors. The lounge expresses itself as a focal black space in the middle of the home, while the four rooms enveloping it are whitewashed. “The house pulls you in so that it’s not simply about moving from one room to another,” Cornel explains of the intentional purpose present in every colour, pattern and surface choice. “When you’re in a dark room looking into the light, or in a light room looking into the dark, you’re enticed and drawn in.”

Having worked with fabrics for much of their lives, the Strydoms have mastered the art of layering with texture, and this Karoo home, decorated with bare necessities, is an exercise in pared-back plushness. “I don’t believe a barren landscape should exclude luxurious surfaces,” says Cornel.

Romo’s glass-bead wallpaper in the reading room, a golden side table in the lounge and sheepskin rugs throughout the home talk to this subconscious sense of luxe amid the limited colour scheme.

Equally intentional is her inclusion of circular elements in the rectangular rooms. Round mirrors, tables and lampshades are her way of introducing feminine forms amid masculine shapes, the male and female juxtaposition present, too, in the monochromatic theme, the thorny, flowering Crateagus (hawthorn) Cornel painted on the kitchen wall, and in the full-on immersion in both daytime and night-time when staying on the farm.

Wooden shutters guard doors and windows but are never shut. The koppies, buck, plains and grasses and bushveld, sheep, stars, sunrises and sunsets are what living here is about. Cornel sums it up: “To see the veld from your bedroom when you wake up, and to lie in bed longer … That’s why you come.”

Having been built from stones found on the property, the architecture blends in seamlessly with its natural environment. The flat roof allows it to be camouflaged in front of the koppies, resulting in a surprise welcome when one nears the building and it suddenly comes into view

Designed by Cornel, Pink Hill Karoo’s rectangular form is an unobtrusive element on the flat terrain dotted with small koppies. Its building blocks of brown stone sourced from the farm make it almost invisible in its wild-grass and bush environment. The merino sheep with which the Strydoms farm often wander by the house during the day.

The entrance is a room for transitioning between one’s journey and arrival to the home. This entryway is made soothing with the use of neutral Romo wallpaper and brown and ecru cushions.

With an overhead projector, Cornel painted a black Crateagus (commonly known as hawthorn) on the white kitchen wal.l

A rock found on the farm displays a lichen that complements the home’s interiors, while the basket holds olive branches from Cornel’s parents’ garden.