Our cover story for the April-May 2020 issue of Tatler Homes Singapore is a colourful abode in Cape Town with modern influences
Stylist and interior designer Laureen Rossouw first saw this property five years ago. She and her lawyer husband Koos were about to move out of their City Bowl apartment in Cape Town, South Africa, when she spotted a picture of “a dilapidated house with classic Bauhaus lines” in the papers. “I thought it might be a bad picture or wishful thinking,” she says, but she quickly made her way to the house, which was ideally located in the City Bowl suburb of Oranjezicht, on the edge of one of Cape Town’s most charming parks.
As soon as she saw the characterful building, Laureen was smitten. “I immediately phoned Koos to tell him I had found my dream house. He loved it too, although when he saw how much work there was to do, he couldn’t hide his disappointment,” she says. It took much persuasion to convince him, she adds—although not that much, it seems, since “at 3pm on the same day, we signed (the offer)”.
And so began a lengthy process of planning and building, conceived by Laureen in partnership with her daughter Renée Rossouw. Renée is an architect by training and an acclaimed designer who was part of a group of young African creatives who worked on furniture giant Ikea’s Överallt collection in 2019.
Inside the house, it’s impossible not to be captivated by the visual feast created by the classic 20th-century furniture, authentic design objects and unique artworks that fill the interiors. But what really makes Laureen’s painstakingly curated collection shine is the way it fits into the context of the reworked spaces.
“The exterior had all the good elements of a mid-century meets art deco house, but the interior spaces were almost completely redone as these didn’t have (spatial) flow or enough light,” says Renée. The mother-and-daughter duo turned the garden-facing kitchen into a breathtaking double-volume space. They added more glazing and openings elsewhere, including a large circular porthole in the dining area, as well as clerestory windows and interior glass and metal doors. The aim was to reconnect the house with its beautiful garden, which is now a lush masterpiece, and the greenery of the park landscape beyond it.
