When does a house become a home?

We have been chipping away at Towerwater for 32 years. From a mostly weekend and holiday project, we began incrementally investing more time on it since Covid. I suppose we have always been too ambitious for our own good. Although Towerwater has always been the project closest to our hearts, we have enjoyed all our historic building restoration projects. Every project had its own pleasures. The two Victorian cottages with their brookie lace and English detail; the Art Deco/Arts and Crafts house with its symmetry and layered shapes, married with raw truthful materials and an indulgent accent on their natural qualities.

Then there is Towerwater. Towerwater with its thatched roofs and whitewashed walls, oak trees screening the delightfully proportioned windows on either side of the wide, green door, and handmade tiles covering the floors. “There is nothing inconsequent about these elements, these materials. They arose from a divine instinct for what is good, from a sure knowledge of the fundamentals of fine building.” – Rex Martienssen, the South African Modern Movement pioneer, commenting on Cape vernacular architecture and its importance as an authentic architecture, 1928.

Towerwater is our ode to Cape vernacular architecture with a celebration of South African vernacular crafts complementing the interior. Towerwater has always been more than a weekend house. It is probably more home than any other place for us. Being able to complete the rooms with artworks and moving furniture around to positions where they feel just right, finally brought to the house that elusive state of harmony one hopes to experience in a space.

Towerwater feels more complete to us now, but not more of a home than before. It is more a sense of comfort and contentment. Like positioning a large cushion in a way that it meets all your needs for comfort and contentment. We are still occasionally surprised by the results of our work. I find myself walking into a room and dismissing that nagging little inner voice that always demands further improvement. Is this the ultimate sign of contentment?

Towerwater has always been home. It is the place where we make memories, remember, and celebrate friends and family. It is the space where we are surrounded by the things that makes us smile. For many friends it has been a life-long constancy of arrival and departure, a place that welcomes you in times of joy and sadness.

A house becomes a home when you share it with the right people and over the years, we have said hello and goodbye to amazing people whose lingering spirits have made Towerwater the home that we love.