Tulbagh House

WORDS Graham Wood PHOTOS Warren Heath/Bureaux PRODUCTION Sven Alberding

An 18th-century monastery in the Cape Winelands – later an avant-garde artist’s studio – has been converted into a spiritual retreat for a young family.

It was six years ago, while exploring a “potential art project” in the small Western Cape town of Tulbagh, that Abigail Rands stumbled on this remarkable building. Her family owns a wine farm nearby, so she feels a strong connection to the area; and besides, she says, “I like beautiful architecture, raw materials and good art.” And this house had all three in bucketloads.

It is one of the oldest buildings in the town – the first monastery and mission school established in 1797 – and its distinctive gables, thick whitewashed walls, wooden rafters and thatched roof were the very embodiment of traditional Cape Winelands architecture. More recently, however, the artist Christo Coetzee lived there from the 1970s until his death at the turn of the century. For a time afterwards, the house was a museum dedicated to his life and work.

“A friend of Christo’s took us around and told us stories about each artwork. Everything I took in that day stayed with me,” says Abigail – and it wasn’t long before she came back. This time, she’d had an idea: she wanted to turn the house into a retreat of sorts; a place where, as she puts it, “you can let go and connect with how you really feel”. Later, her vision came to include a yoga studio in the old monastery building (which had once served as Coetzee’s studio).

Before settling in Tulbagh late in his career, Coetzee had lived for long spells in various parts of Europe, and was fascinated with Japan. He was influenced by the Gutai Art Association, a Japanese post-war group of radical avant-garde artists who pushed the boundaries of conceptual and performance art. In her 20s, Abigail had also spent long periods of time in Southeast Asia and Italy, and the fusion in the building’s history between East and West resonated with her.

Of course, the heritage of the building set some tight parameters. Luckily, Abigail’s neighbour happened to be a heritage consultant, so they worked closely on preserving and restoring the heritage features. The ability of good design to transcend time was central to their approach. Rather than hiring an architect, Abigail chose to work with a local builder and craftsmen from the valley. When it came to the interiors, she enlisted the help of THEFOURTH, an artistic and design practice founded by the couple Maybe Corpaci and Rodan Kane Hart, who is best known as a sculptor. Abigail was particularly drawn to their sensitivity to the quality of space in architecture, and their attention to detail, especially when it comes to choosing furniture and art. She asked them to furnish the house with found or repurposed pieces rather than new items, which resulted in an eclectic selection of furniture, from Modernist gems to “old humble objects”. And so the cavernous, atmospheric rooms, beautifully restored, were filled with a vision of Modernism meeting tradition, East meeting West, contemporary African art meeting avant-garde 20th-century art. THEFOURTH also created two fabulous bespoke pieces: a four-poster bed, and a circular brass-chain shower in the wet room.

Rodan made the bed with half-moon detailing on each post. “It came about when Abigail decided to call the residence Dar el Qamar – Monastery of the Moon (as translated from the Arabic phrase),” says Maybe. In the main bathroom, the shower, with its circular cast-concrete base, is ringed by a curtain of more than a hundred brass ball chains that, says Maybe, “creates a shiny curtain that dances hand in hand with the African beaded armchair in the bathroom (which also has gold details)”.

Perhaps Abigail’s favourite spot, however, is the internal courtyard with a beautiful old cypress tree that grounds the space. “We wanted the garden to be stark and sculptural,” she says. She wanted it to conjure a feeling of desert, moon and stone – a gravitas that is juxtaposed with a covered poolside lounge designed to look like a postcolonial African club.

This rich, multifaceted character is the key to the new spirit of the place. “Light and dark, old and new, masculine and feminine – it creates a kind of tension that leads to a dynamic creative process,” she says. That “tension”, however, is also at the heart of the sense of balance and peace at Dar el Qamar. It’s an atmosphere at once peaceful and stimulating; grounding, but inspiring – perfect for restoring the spirit and the senses.

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