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Willeen Le Roux and Craig Ferguson with their son, Francis, at the front door of their home. -
Designed by Cape Town firm Beatty Vermeiren, the home features a textured raw-brick exterior inspired by the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech. The architects created the pattern on the facade (which makes a rather good climbing wall for agile young humans and clambering plants), and added three-dimensional interest to the exterior with popped steel window frames. -
Designed by Cape Town firm Beatty Vermeiren, the home features a textured raw-brick exterior inspired by the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech. The architects created the pattern on the facade (which makes a rather good climbing wall for agile young humans and clambering plants), and added three-dimensional interest to the exterior with popped steel window frames. -
The kitchen combines wooden cabinetry with a wall clad in clay tiles and cast-concrete countertops by Wolkberg Casting Studio, as well as a simple Corcoleum floor. The mixer tap at the built-in sink in the island is from LAVO Bathroom Concepts, and the Nguni barstools are by John Vogel. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sliding doors fill the dining area with light, with a built-in terrazzo plinth and high shelf above it providing an ideal location for indoor greenery. A large wooden dining table, made by Craig, is positioned atop a rug from Herringbone. The chairs are by James Mudge and the pendant light is by HAY. -
The kitchen combines wooden cabinetry with a wall clad in clay tiles and cast-concrete countertops by Wolkberg Casting Studio, as well as a simple Corcoleum floor. The mixer tap at the built-in sink in the island is from LAVO Bathroom Concepts, and the Nguni barstools are by John Vogel. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sliding doors fill the dining area with light, with a built-in terrazzo plinth and high shelf above it providing an ideal location for indoor greenery. A large wooden dining table, made by Craig, is positioned atop a rug from Herringbone. The chairs are by James Mudge and the pendant light is by HAY. -
The light-filled living room has a relaxed, cosy atmosphere, with wooden panelling – made and installed by Craig as one of his lockdown woodworking projects – adding warmth. He also made the wall shelves. The pendant light, sectional sofa and chaise are by HAY, and the Flight of Fancy daybed is by Douglas & Company. A Herringbone rug grounds the space. -
The light-filled living room has a relaxed, cosy atmosphere, with wooden panelling – made and installed by Craig as one of his lockdown woodworking projects – adding warmth. He also made the wall shelves. The pendant light, sectional sofa and chaise are by HAY, and the Flight of Fancy daybed is by Douglas & Company. A Herringbone rug grounds the space. -
The entrance hall doubles as a showcase for some of Willeen and Craig’s large collection of local contemporary art. -
Designed by Cape Town firm Beatty Vermeiren, the home features a textured raw-brick exterior inspired by the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech. The architects created the pattern on the facade (which makes a rather good climbing wall for agile young humans and clambering plants), and added three-dimensional interest to the exterior with popped steel window frames. -
Designed by Cape Town firm Beatty Vermeiren, the home features a textured raw-brick exterior inspired by the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech. The architects created the pattern on the facade (which makes a rather good climbing wall for agile young humans and clambering plants), and added three-dimensional interest to the exterior with popped steel window frames. -
The kitchen combines wooden cabinetry with a wall clad in clay tiles and cast-concrete countertops by Wolkberg Casting Studio, as well as a simple Corcoleum floor. The mixer tap at the built-in sink in the island is from LAVO Bathroom Concepts, and the Nguni barstools are by John Vogel. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sliding doors fill the dining area with light, with a built-in terrazzo plinth and high shelf above it providing an ideal location for indoor greenery. A large wooden dining table, made by Craig, is positioned atop a rug from Herringbone. The chairs are by James Mudge and the pendant light is by HAY. -
The kitchen combines wooden cabinetry with a wall clad in clay tiles and cast-concrete countertops by Wolkberg Casting Studio, as well as a simple Corcoleum floor. The mixer tap at the built-in sink in the island is from LAVO Bathroom Concepts, and the Nguni barstools are by John Vogel. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sliding doors fill the dining area with light, with a built-in terrazzo plinth and high shelf above it providing an ideal location for indoor greenery. A large wooden dining table, made by Craig, is positioned atop a rug from Herringbone. The chairs are by James Mudge and the pendant light is by HAY. -
The kitchen combines wooden cabinetry with a wall clad in clay tiles and cast-concrete countertops by Wolkberg Casting Studio, as well as a simple Corcoleum floor. The mixer tap at the built-in sink in the island is from LAVO Bathroom Concepts, and the Nguni barstools are by John Vogel. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sliding doors fill the dining area with light, with a built-in terrazzo plinth and high shelf above it providing an ideal location for indoor greenery. A large wooden dining table, made by Craig, is positioned atop a rug from Herringbone. The chairs are by James Mudge and the pendant light is by HAY. -
The house makes brilliant use of standard-issue red clay brick, deploying the material in inventive and striking ways. -
The house makes brilliant use of standard-issue red clay brick, deploying the material in inventive and striking ways. -
The pool offers panoramic views across Cape Town’s southern suburbs. -
The house makes brilliant use of standard-issue red clay brick, deploying the material in inventive and striking ways. -
Anchored by a Frances VH rug, the main bedroom is furnished with a wooden bed by Houtlander. -
The entrance hall connects to the stairway to the first floor. -
A compact balcony off the main bedroom is home to yet more greenery in containers. -
In the colour-saturated guest bedroom, a bed from Weylandts is dressed in a bedspread by African Jacquard. -
Covered and cosy – even Bam the French bulldog thinks so! – the outdoor dining space alongside the built-in braai is furnished with a table and benches by James Mudge. -
Spacious, relaxed and sheltered from the elements, the home’s outdoor living space is in use almost throughout the year. -
Willeen, Francis and Craig enjoy lounging in the Papa Sun outdoor chairs by Haldane. -
The main bathroom features a bathtub and tapware from LAVO Bathroom Concepts, and textured green tiles by Wolkberg Casting Studio.
Combining the bold linearity and materiality of its architecture with exuberantly art-filled interiors, this Cape Town home is an inspired take on relaxed family living, 21st style.
WORDS Robyn Alexander/Bureaux PRODUCTION Sven Alberding/Bureaux PHOTOS Greg Cox/Bureaux
“Francis isn’t impressed by it at all,” says homeowner Willeen Le Roux, laughing, about the striking raw-brick facade of the Cape Town home she shares with her nine-year-old son and her partner, creative director Craig Ferguson. “We’ve tried to explain to him that the inspiration was the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech, but he isn’t convinced by that.” Young Francis has dubbed his home “the Minecraft house” – a reference to its looking, in his eyes, much like a building block from the popular online game – and even though he and his parents have lived here for five years now, he still regularly asks, “When are we going to paint the outside?”
Certainly, its blend of bold architectural lines with a zesty red brick facade and arresting “popped-out” steel window frames makes this home a somewhat unconventional building for the area – the peaceful, equestrian hillside locale of Zwaanswyk in Cape Town’s southern suburbs, where new dwellings tend to be low-slung, plastered and painted in subtle shades of pale. Rather like the house alongside this one, which occupies the other half of the large, subdivided plot of land that the couple found in 2019 with Craig’s brother Nick, a property developer. The plan was always to subdivide and build concurrently, which is what the siblings did – with the very capable assistance of Nick’s father-in-law, who is a master builder.
In Willeen and Craig’s case, design planning – employing the services of architectural practice Beatty Vermeiren – and construction took place from early 2019, and the house was completed during the first part of 2020, in spite of a few supply issues caused by the worldwide lockdowns. The family moved in right away and have been happily ensconced ever since.
The couple had asked Beatty Vermeiren to reference the use of natural brick and peachy terracotta tile of the YSL Museum in the design of their home because “we liked the simplicity of the materials, showing the brickwork and using its patterns to make something beautiful”, Willeen says. The architects suggested the arresting popped steel window frames that jut out of the building, adding three-dimensional interest to the exterior, and proposed the use of a corrugated formwork mould for some of the concrete ceilings and other elements, creating another striking textural detail that recurs throughout the interiors.
Sporting a relatively small footprint, the house has two levels. The ground floor includes an open-plan kitchen, dining and lounge space that leads to a covered veranda, and from there, out into the garden. The latter, following the removal of a grove of old stone pines on the property that had come to the end of its lifespan, is full of indigenous plants and includes a swimming pool. Upstairs are three bedrooms – with the main bedroom en suite, and Francis’s room and the guest bedroom (also used as Willeen’s home office) sharing a second bathroom – plus a casual TV or pyjama lounge/playroom.
When it came to the look and feel for the interiors, Willeen says that she and Craig initially thought about going minimal, but very rapidly realised, “Who are we kidding?” They both enjoy “as much colour and visual interest as possible”, she says – and their house definitely reflects this.
Craig has spent many years working in Cape Town’s creative circles, so the couple know many of the artists whose work lines the walls of their home, and they revel in “anything that brings joy, fun and quirkiness – like the Ghanaian movie posters in the TV room”, says Willeen. “We don’t take anything too seriously.” Favourite South African artists include Daniel Levi,cCameron Platter, Paul Senyol, Peter Eastman, MJ Lourens, Michael Taylor, Conrad Botes and Andrew Sutherland.
And then there are Craig’s own projects: having completed a course in carpentry in December 2019, he made the oversized wooden dining table himself during the first pandemic lockdown, referencing a design by James Mudge. “I said, can’t you start with a footstool?” says Willeen, smiling. “But he did a fantastic job. And he worked on the wooden panelling and built-in shelving in the living room, and made the games drawers and other storage too.”
In terms of the colour selection for the interiors, “These are the colours we like at the moment,” says Willeen. But the terracottas, greens and ochres may not be here for long. With the family having recently travelled to Morocco and brought back a number of brightly coloured rugs, a bolder colour palette could soon be taking over. “It’s a moveable feast and we like it like that – a house that will never be ‘finished’.”
Willeen, Craig and Francis moved here from a semi-detached Victorian house in the densely developed central Cape Town suburb of Woodstock. As Willeen puts it, “We didn’t have a blade of grass near us for years, and then we moved to a paddock with loads of trees around…” The family certainly doesn’t regret making the leap: surrounded by horses – and very few barking dogs, Willeen points out – they revel in the quietly peaceful atmosphere of the area, and spend most of their leisure time relaxing and entertaining at home. “Even the light feels different in Zwaanswyk; it has a softness, a golden quality,” she says. “The mornings and late afternoons are especially beautiful.” | beattyvermeiren.com
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