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Kobus scours a field of stinkkruid in search of edible treasures – veldkool, soutslaai, surings and samphire. Kasteelberg looms in the distance. -
An outdoor shower with a limestone-and-fynbos floor offers sweeping views of strandveld vegetation and a beautiful panorama of Kasteelberg. -
An old Oregon pine shelf salvaged from a carpentry workshop houses Kobus’s collection of cookbooks, kitchen gadgets and LPs. -
The sparse living space features a 1950s wood-and-leather chair from Mozambique, sat in front of the simple fireplace. -
Kobus prepares a variety of veldkos at the dining table – soutslaai, veldkool and surings, all picked near his cottage -
An oil-on-paper painting by artist Roelie van Heerden hangs above Jan Douglas’s delightfully whimsical Kantelknaap table lamp. -
View to the north: The cottage glows like a tiny lightbox against the backdrop of the sky at sunset. -
Kobus bought the enamelled tin bath at the eclectic Koöperasie Stories store in Simondium, near Paarl, and the K-Way lunar telescope is from Cape Union Mart. -
Two wooden paraffin boxes serve as bedside tables. On the one is an oil-on-canvas seascape by artist Louis Nel. -
Kobus van der Merwe’s farm cottage is situated about 4 km from Paternoster at the foot of Kasteelberg. The strandveld vegetation is adapted to the alkaline, sandy soil of the West Coast.
PHOTOS AND WORDS Jac de Villiers
A quotation by Leonardo da Vinci sums up the spirit of Kobus van der Merwe’s tiny farm cottage near Paternoster: “Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it.”
It makes sense that chef Kobus van der Merwe has chosen to live in the foothills of Kasteelberg, about 4 km from Paternoster on the West Coast, where hunter-gatherers and herders subsisted from as early as 600 AD on a diet of small game, shellfish and wild greens – not dissimilar to how Kobus lives today in a two-roomed worker’s cottage he renovated and extended to suit his spartan needs.
The cottage is situated on a farm amid hectares of undisturbed strandveld vegetation, giving Kobus access to an assortment of edible plants and herbs with evocative names: koekemakranka, stinkkruid, slangbessie and soutslaai jostle for space with samphire, a spindly, juicy marshland succulent mentioned by Shakespeare in King Lear, and which Kobus serves with delight at Oep ve Koep, his Paternoster restaurant.
Recently, says Kobus, he began experimenting with making his own vermouth – a kind of botanical alchemy where roots and herbs such as wild fennel, African sage and pelargonium are infused in alcohol before the liquid is added, drop by fragrant drop, to fortified wine to create the aperitif.
The kitchen, lounge and dining room occupy a single space, with a simple built-in fireplace and a 1950s wood-and-leather chair from Mozambique – a gift from his sister Freda – sat directly before it. A cartoon-like portrait of a man and a portable radio (painted by Kobus’s friend Roelie van Heerden), is suspended above a Jan Douglas Kantelknaap leather-and-wood table lamp that has a delightfully Heath Robinson feel to it.
A few classical LPs, personal mementoes and artefacts and an assemblage of cookbooks take up the rest of the room: Some of the tomes are by famous chefs, some are based on famous restaurants, and others are by famous chefs about famous restaurants (Frank Camorra’s MoVida and Ferran Adrià’s A Day at elBulli). For a world-renowned chef, Kobus’s kitchen is a remarkably simple affair consisting of a table-top cast-iron gas burner, a fridge, a sink and a few old pots and pans.
The main renovation to the house is an extended bathroom where Kobus installed a full-wall window that frames the veld dramatically and bathes the room in early-morning sunlight. It’s fitted with a vintage French tin bath enamelled on the inside.
The shower is a copper pipe jutting down from the ceiling with a rosette screwed onto it. The bathroom is bold and inviting – more bathroom with en-suite bedroom than the other way round.
A huge Roelie van Heerden abstract painting showing converging vertical lines and a small Louis Nel seascape decorate the bedroom. Two wooden boxes serve as bedside tables, making the space almost monastic in its simplicity.
Living in small spaces demands a discipline that forces one to choose only the essentials for daily life and discard the extraneous. Kobus’s sober and modest approach to home decor, cooking, writing and life in general are advocated and encouraged by trend forecaster Li Edelkoort, whose Paris apartment bears an uncanny resemblance to this farm cottage.
