In a valley in South Africa, famous for its wines, an hour away from Cape Town, decorator Natalie Hauman imagined the cabin of her dreams. Welcome to his haven of peace in complete symbiosis with this eternal environment.
Back to basics. This is what Thuúla Havens, a 700-hectare estate in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, just an hour from Cape Town, stands for. South African interior designer Natalie Haumann has settled there after practicing her talents from France for more than a decade. Her husband, Petrus, who spent most of his career in the third row at Brive Rugby Club, followed her to this light-flooded valley of serenity. And while Petrus, left off the land, devoted himself to growing organic fruit, Natalie set about renovating and developing this corner of paradise.
He was able to brilliantly sublimate a modest brick house on a huge plot of land. He transformed it into a white cabin with clean lines, which is now dominated by natural materials: wood, slate, which blend harmoniously with the warm tones of the earth and surrounding vegetation.
“I didn’t want a complete rebuild,” he explains. I favored a soft intervention to create a functional and beautiful space where every detail is taken care of. So I kept the existing walls while redoing the interior. I tried to find a ‘shocking’ simplicity, inspired by the houses in Puglia that I fell in love with.” So there is a form of organic modesty in the irregular floors, undulating ceilings that filter the sun’s rays, rounded corners and crevices that shelter objects…
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Very soft choices that create an enveloping sensation, a sense of comfort. However, it was necessary to modify the original structure to create openings to allow light to spread into the space and, above all, to “capture the views”, explains Natalie. We now admire the mountain in the distance from the bathroom surrounded by miles of blue sky. The view from the shower is lost among the trees and wild flowers. In the living room, we allow ourselves to be hypnotized by the silhouette of a hill rising on the horizon.
Photo by Nicolas MATHEUS
“It’s a journey for the eyes,” laughs the decorator. Above all, it is a successful dialogue between this unique nature at the end of the world and an architecture that respects this exceptional setting and environment; this is facilitated by solar energy and water from nearby springs. Here’s David Bowie’s voice performing the song Wild Is the Wind wanted. A customized soundtrack in this environment where you feel timeless.
For rent at perfecthideaways.co.za/shoot-location/thuulahiddenhaven
@thuula_havens:
Source: Le Figaro
