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Home at last : Behind the headboard in the main bedroom you will find the bath from On_Tap and the Zucchetti taps from Italtile. -
Home at last : Anwar sits on the stairs with Tina the dachsund while Marc holds Billy. -
Home at last : The main bedroom viewed in the floor-to-ceiling mirror, which covers an entire wall in the split-level town house. All the joinery and woodwork was done by Libra Interiors. The frames are from Bangkok Blondes. -
Home at last : The ground floor as reflected in the floor-to-ceiling mirror Tina adores the large modular couch from Muralto. The multi-talented Henry Hopkins painted the artwork above the sideboard. -
Home at last : The kitchen was installed by Builders Warehouse and the bar stools were designed by Haldane Martin. the wooden armchair is an old South African railway chair that Marc found in a pawn shop. The coffee table and ceramic bowl are from Lim. -
Home at last : The interior designer Henry Hopkins. -
Home at last : The original wooden beams were discovered once the roof of the first floor had been broken away. The original pine steps that lead to the second level have been painted black.
PHOTOS: Greg Cox | PRODUCTION: Etienne Hanekom | WORDS: Marianne Thamm
Comedian Marc Lottering and his partner Anwar Mckay, together with interior designer Henry Hopkins, have brought a touch of style to already trendy Green Point.
While the mirrors, plasma TV and custom-made café au lait couch might ooze a minimalist, sassy elegance, it is the carved mahogany sideboard that steals the show in this household.
Walk into Marc and Anwar’s new home in bustling, excuse-me-I’m-preparing-for-2010 Green Point and there she squats, smug and self-satisfied, like a dignified grand old lady.
It has been only a month since they, along with their two beloved tan dachshunds, Billy and Tina, moved southeastwards from a rented apartment on Ocean View Drive into the small but airy split-level, two-bedroom town house just off thrumming Main Road.
‘The day the new couch was delivered I heard Anwar say something like, “Sweetie this has just got to go,” and I assumed he was talking about the couch. I thought he didn’t like it,’ remembers Marc.
Anwar picks up the story. ‘Marc inherited the sideboard after his mom died and it moved with us from our other apartment. But when the new couch arrived it all suddenly looked too cluttered so I said, “I know it has sentimental value but it’s creating a problem here and I think it has got to go”.’
What Anwar was aiming for in this, the first home he and Marc have owned jointly, was a tranquil, light, uncluttered space with a sense of understated modern, urban elegance. ‘It’s a small space and I wanted to keep it simple but not clinical. I also wanted it comfortable and stylish and the sideboard didn’t fit in,’ Anwar adds.
A quick reshuffle of an ottoman saved the day. Suddenly, Auntie Rienie’s sideboard, which had stood for years in the lounge of Marc’s childhood home in Grassy Park, looked like it had always belonged among the fab, bright, new things. In fact it brought context, character and added warmth to the room.
He loves their new home
Marc was relieved and delighted.
His ideal home, he says, would be near the ocean, and have a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, an open fireplace and lots of multicoloured couches. ‘That’s my style. I like lived-in spaces. I think my taste reminds Anwar a bit too much of home,’ Marc says with a laugh. But, he quickly adds, he loves their new home, even though he can’t hear the Atlantic rolling and hissing at night anymore.
Well, at least he can still see it. Almost. If he stands on tiptoe and carefully peers out of one of the ample skylights that brighten the loft-like master bedroom upstairs.
After sharing two rented spaces – the first a fabulous Art-Deco bachelor flat on Kloof Street (that I have to admit once belonged to me, as did the faux 1950s coffee table that has survived it to Green Point) and the second, the split-level apartment on Ocean View Drive – Marc and Anwar decided it was time to become landowners.
But entering the property market in Cape Town, says Marc, was a sobering experience. ‘We went into complete shock. I thought I was Marc Lottering and that I could just buy anything. I was willing to spend around R1 million and then was totally shocked at what we could get for that.’
Their needs, too, were specific. Billy and Tina also needed some sort of garden or courtyard to snuffle around in and catch some sun.
Two natural urban sophisticates
The Green Point town house was the second space they had viewed, recalls Anwar. ‘We walked in, looked at it, walked out, discussed it a bit on the way to the car and then decided we wanted it,’ he recalls.
‘Before that, estate agents would see two men and take us to view huge lofts: “You’ll just love it darling – very chic, very New York.” But none of them did anything for us and, besides, there were the dogs,’ says Marc.
The clever dachshunds have adjusted to their Green Point home. Tina worked out how to get through the dog door on the first day. Billy is still having a bit of trouble but he is getting there.
Marc and Anwar have settled into their new neighbourhood like the two natural urban sophisticates they are. They love being a few hundred metres from the new pulse of Cape Town and being able to ‘throw on some jeans and a jacket’ and walk everywhere.
Around the corner is Giovanni’s Deli, a Woolworths and Club Jade, a hotspot Marc recently discovered and where he occasionally hangs out when he wants to be social. ‘I’ve always believed I have a right to live well. I suppose it has something to do with growing up with being told where you can’t live or what you can’t do.’
• Henry Hopkins: 083 468 3371
