the garden with the kids and go for a walkabout up the sculptural
staircase to enjoy these spaces. It’s a lovely home for parties and braais
because the outdoor areas are so versatile.’ The roof gardens, designed
by Anthony Teuchert of Atlanticscapes, play out as a typical Table
Mountain landscape in both species and planting, with particular
care taken to achieve the right scale and texture. It was only on the
south side of the property, thanks to the shade of some large trees, that
they instead opted for drought-resistant species of plectranthus.
‘We spent a long time getting the mix of plants right,’ says Bettina.
Perhaps all of this – the architecture, the aesthetic, the closeness
to nature – was predestined for Bettina and Jeremy, who have
always shared a love of art and design since they met at the National
School of the Arts in Johannesburg. ‘My grandmother lived in
a Modernist house in Stellenbosch and she had some iconic pieces
that I inherited from her, including the Noguchi coffee table and the
Swedish String shelves that are installed in the lounge,’ Bettina says.
She credits her mother’s love of Modern art as fostering her
affinity for abstract art and furniture, and her childhood home was
a great source of inspiration for her, featuring posters of works by
the likes of Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Henri Matisse. ‘When
we first saw this house, we both realised that it would be a once-
in-a-lifetime opportunity to live in an “artwork”,’ says Jeremy.
If ever the law of attraction needed proof, then the Woodward family
- and their unique home – surely provides it. O opencity.co.za