PRICE: R 6 000 000 – Full title, serviced land; Including VAT and transfer costs
High savanna, eternal sun swept grasslands with spectacular wrap-around views – a space where your heart swells to the movement of the grass, silvered by a runnel of breeze. The distant range-on-range of hills towards the north, misted blue with moisture haze; the sky like a vast ceramic bowl, blue glazed, clouds providing endless interest.
To the north-east, the vast bulk of the Wonderscheur ridge swells and dips behind your own little knoll. To the south, behind you is the sweep of the Makhonjwas with their krantzes and wooded groins of forest.
This site more than any other, celebrates the sheer escapism of high open grassland. It is located on a mid-slope shoulder overlooking the fan of wooded valleys that feed into Hyslop’s Creek. The footprint is gently tilted north, in a hollow between two slight grassy rises to the east and west. Off-site the ground falls away steeply in the front, exaggerating its elevation and sense of freedom. It provides a classic opportunity for a creative architect to blend the dwelling into the minimal cover the site provides.
The building limit is an east west oblong that includes the whole of a slight dent in the shoulder of the hill. It will require some skilful excavation and turf roof to hide the low profile structure from casual view. The site boasts a lone and stunted Huilboom in one corner, which serves to emphasise the clean rippling curves of open grassland. The site will remain cool when others are baking, and be almost temperate in July. This grassland is typically diverse but drier than the south facing slopes opposite on the partially wooded Wonderscheur ridge. Rooigras, favoured by zebra and wildebeest, dominates, speckled with the mountain loving silver lambs-ear (Heliochrysum) among other grassland flowers.
Your eyes are naturally drawn to the classical view down the Fourteen Streams gorge and through to the Noord Kaap hills. But it is the vast expanse of open sky that provides the signature for this site, especially at night where star gazing will become a knockout aperitif for extended “dining out”.
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