5 Bed House in Solar Beach

At the heart of the house is the living area whose ceiling is an open, timber-lined pitched roof. Its focus is an old-fashioned iron wood-burning stove. There are comfortable sofas and armchairs at one end and a large dining table at the other with, beyond, the kitchen envisaged as a lean-to extension to the main body of the house. During summer, doors from the living area to the stoep can be thrown open and beyond the outside dining table, theres a simmering view across the vlei to the fynbos-clad hills. Here and there, antique Cape furniture keeps alive the context of this otherwise urbane family holiday home.

There are four bedrooms to choose from, one of them twin-bedded with the option of an additional old-fashioned half-poster set into a crook of the L-shaped room. In the main bedroom, a free-standing bath shares the room with the bed and is positioned so that the bather soaking in the water has all the advantage of the lovely views to the surroundings. All the rooms are simply furnished with a mix of old-fashioned English and South African furniture, rugs and kelims, bedspreads of shweshwe print and woven kente textiles, hand-painted ceramics, linen-covered armchairs and, of course, a collection of paintings that would make any art gallery sick with envy.