A new frontier
A smart take on colonial leaves this Karoo lodge with just the right balance of tradition and relevance.
Samara Private Game Reserve in the Karoo was once 11 separate farms overgrazed by cattle and sheep.
The 28 000-hectare reserve, a project close to the heart of owner, London-based South African Sarah Tompkins and her husband, stocks black wildebeests, white rhino, cheetah, eland, giraffe, steenbok, monkeys, kudu, baboons, jackal and rare Cape Mountains zebra-game that would originally have been part of the landscape before it became farmland.
Tompkins enlisted the help of designer John Jacob Zwiegelaar to transform the Manor (the residence that she and her husband chose as their private home) from almost dilapidated to a luxurious interpretation of Karoo chic, using the vemacular of neighbouring towns, such as Graaff Reinet, and the magnificent surrounds as a starting point.
The result is a clever take on a colonial home. Originally intending to fix the house up herself, Tompkins decided to hand the project over to Zwiegelaar when he described what he saw for it.
The green corrugated roof and wraparound verandah are traditional, as are fireplaces, but with its clean lines and restrained almost monochromatic palette, the house has a distinct feel of modernity and is drop-dead smart.
Adamant that he wanted to avoid any tired bush-lodge clichés in a setting like this, he instead focused on referencing the natural and architectural history of the area, while keeping it relevant through furnishing and colour.
You enter the Manor under a wide covered portico, decorated with large cacti in pots, a traditional Karoo yellow-wood table made from reclaimed floorboards and woven-grass bowls framed on the walls.
Beyond, rough stone walls decorated with beautiful twisting tree roots lead you deeper into the house.
‘We wanted to create something extremely fresh and oasis like,’ Zwiegelaar explains. From most vantage points in the living area the pool is visible, while a water feature’s movement creates a feeling of peace.
The layout tis a traditional, ordered and symmetrical format that leads you through the house, but has been given a contemporary spin with a spacious entrance, allowing a vista right through to the 21-metre pool.
‘I wanted visitors to get the intensity of the spatial experience-the house and surrounds in one ‘, says Zwiegelaar.
The view extends beyond the pool to a natural water hole where monkeys and rhinos often linger.
From the hall, a long corridor, painted with green and white stripes, leads on either side to four dayntyi-suite bedrooms.
Zwiegelaar commissioned the botanical paintings of indigenous plants, such as aloe vera, which Tompkins loves, from the famed South African painter Kurt Pio.
He also modified the conventional wraparound verandah to cater for more privacy-by erecting walls between the rooms on the outside, each room now leads out to its own enclosed outdoor space looking out over the landscape.
Ahead, pass shelves filled with Zulu beer pots, is the drawing room, furnished with armchairs in relaxed white-linen slipcovers. ‘We didn’t use sofas as we wanted to maintain a fresh feel, a sense of luxury without feeling mumsy,’ explains Zwiegelaar. ‘But if you want an afternoon siesta, there are two cosy alcoves with seating. The children get lost under all the Kuba cushions.’
Above the chimneypiece hangs a bold picture of a monkey, also by Pio, informed by the primates who frequent the trees around the house. ‘The idea was to create art with a very strong graphic feel to give the whole rom a contemporary air.
The wrought-iron chandeliers, made by local blacksmith Talla Crouse , are intended to feel part of the architecture,’ says Zwiegelaar.
Polished screeded floors are inlaid with reclaimed tallow-wood floorboards and carpets are locally woven rough sisal. This and the timber-panelled ceilings, Georgian style windows, carved-wooden cattle heads, Nguni cushions and zebra-skin rugs all stylishly epitomise a new colonial style.
The graphic architectural feel continues in the dinning room with its striking roundels containing Karoo botanical cut-outs hung up high on the walls. Whilst three robots wrought-iron cage chandeliers designed by Zwiegelaar, hung over the reclaimed yellow-wood table.
Beyond is a cool breakfast room, with Nguni-cow skulls set on plinths.
The reception rooms lead out to the verandah, with more comfortable seating, overlooking the pool. ‘Each day we go on a game drive or picnic to the Kondoa Mountains. The view over the plains towards Tandjiesberg are staggering. But once home in the afternoon, you need a swim and some shade, so John’s outside sitting room is perfect’, says Tompkins.
The same cool and neutral palette continues in the bedrooms.
The main bedroom has a pale woven-rattan headboard separating it from a dressing area, lamps made from sun-bleached wood and carved Asante stools at the foot of the bed.
The shower room is lined in orange sandstone gathered from surrounding hills. ‘Practically everything is locally made,’ Tompkins proudly states.
The Manor pays homage to the ancient Latin adage ‘Ex Africa semper aliquid novi,’ which translates as ‘Out of Africa, always something new’.
‘We felt a responsibility to help the local community.
Samara now gives work to 80 people, who are employed either at the lodges or on the reserve and when we are in London, the house will be available to rent to keep the staff busy,’ says Tompkins.
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