Who: Founder John Jacobs Interior

 INTERVIEW GRAHAM WOOD

Work and home: John Jacob might be best known as the interior designer of Hyde Park’s Luminance store, or perhaps for the guest accommodation at the historic Vergelegen, but he tends to concentrate on domestic interiors. He has also consulted on the interiors for private Gulfstream planes, yacht and game lodge. Last year Jacob was named South African designer of the year at the SA Style Awards. He lives in Cape Town.

My Life:

I grew up in Elgin on an apple farm. From a very young age I was interested in gardens and everything lifestyle related.

My mom took us to France, down the Loire Valley, to look at all the Chateaux and those amazing gardens. When we came back home, I decided I was going to plant an avenue of plane trees up the driveway. I did it for over three years.

When I was in school, I’d spend the week preparing what to cook on weekends. I’d buy the new Raymond Blanc cookbook, look up the most complicated dishes, then spend the whole weekend making them before I went back to boarding school.

I thought I would go into hotels or restaurants, but after taking a cooking course in my gap year, I realised that I didn’t want to.

I went to UCT and did a BCom. After that I went to Design Time School of Interior Design.

I love travelling to Italy and I love the Loire Valley in France. I’ve never been to Japan. I’ve done China and I loved Shanghai. It’s one of my favourite cities.

 My favourite hotel is Belmond Hotel Splendido in Portofino. I love its appropriateness to its location. It’s so beautiful to be there in a building that is part of the synergy of architectural shapes and forms. There is simplicity in that.

My favourite gardens are the Chateau de Villandry in France and Hidcote Manor Garden in the UK.

My Work

At an architectural practice where I worked briefly, I ended up pitching for quite a big interiors job. I got the job and started my interior design practice. It’s the only pitch I have done in my life.

The client and the context inspire me. I know I should be saying nature or Asian architecture, but at the end of the day, I have to create a lifestyle for a personality.

Interior design is about creating a platform for a client’s personality, like a stage set.

The simplest solution always takes the longest, and is always the best.

Every project is like being given a puzzle, and it’s literally about unravelling it. Each project is different. Design is more about context than a look.

I have succeeded if the language and the concept come together and the synergy is potent.

My home and style

My favourite interior designers include Anouska Hempel, Steven Gambrel and Nicky Haslam. I have zero attachment to things. I know that sounds awfully cold, but I would prefer to sell my house with everything in it and then start again with a new idea.

My garden is my favourite thing about my home, especially the relationship between my garden and my house. It has a sense of peace and tranquility, and it’s always harmonious.

I quite like slow food. Coq au vin is one of my best. And I’ve loved making ice-cream since I was 10 years old. I always had this dream that I’d start a South African ice-cream business. Maybe one day I will.

My style in a few words is focused, rational and consistent.

All the paintings I love are mid-century modern. And I just adore abstract expressionism in general. All of them. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko.

I have no time for clothes. I’ll spend weeks walking around markets looking for the perfect accessories for people’s houses, but the idea of going to a shopping centre to buy clothes for myself I find so exhausting. If there’s is too much to choose from I leave.

Read more John Jacob Interiors Magazine features here…