Some years ago my partner had plans for a girls’ trip to Thailand for New Years. I had plans for quiet solitude. She feared I might get too comfortable in my hermit habits so she listed our apartment on Airbnb for the first time.
And just like that, I was evicted by love.
For the next three weeks, I drifted across South Africa and stayed in backpackers, friends’ homes and hotel rooms. I experienced the country like a nomad.
A few months after that experience, scrolling online, I saw a unit for sale. When we went to view it we found out the family was emigrating to Australia and they were selling more of their units. We bought a chunk of the block.
For reasons still unclear, we were living out of suitcases at the time while renovating the one unit. We were fortunate to stay in a garden cottage that belonged to an architect and designer during this time as well [this neighbourhood has incredible gems]
The empty unit became our canvas. An air mattress became a futon and then a green couch. We taught ourselves design the same way you teach yourself a new language: slowly, clumsily but with growing fluency. Over time, we breathed life into a dream to turn the block into a boutique hotel, with each unit carrying its own story.
One part would channel mid-century modern. Another, a coastal sanctuary. The last, a modern safari suite. It felt like we were designing not just rooms but moods, scenes from a film we were writing, a World inside a World.
As the years passed the neighbourhood morphed and the costs of upkeep crept up. The hotel dream strained under its own weight. We sold a few units and kept one (luckily before the pandemic).
That one became home.
A hotel, turned home, turned hedonist hideout.
She moved to another city and like a rib drawn to its cage, I visited her as often as I could. While I was away some interesting personalities stayed in the space, to mention a few: a musician, a photographer, an urban researcher, a journalist, a former whiskey ambassador, a wellness practitioner, a government official and a renowned television producer came around once.
The walls absorbed this energy & their presence.
Sometimes, I still feel them, ghosts of guests, leaning over my shoulder while I work whispering something unknowable, urging me to push further into creative territory.
Having returned two months ago, I catch myself staring at the furniture sometimes, imagining new layouts. The other day, I almost bought new cutlery and crockery just to elevate how my meals feel. My botany skills are getting a workout too. I’ve turned into a neighbourhood forager, collecting clippings on walks and propagating them on an old study table outside. A noir nursery, if you will.
I bought the system at Khaya Records.
Something else is happening, I am feeling a shift.
Two years ago, my venture practice started developing a travel and tourism product on behalf of a client. During the project their circumstances changed and they signed all their IP rights to me. This means that we now own the product – fully.
Over the months the team and I have been working on it quietly alongside our other projects. Like a dripping tap, cautiously iterating as we go, we borrow time and are raising some cash.
Last week when Airbnb announced itself as the ‘everything app’ I read about an interesting concept coming out from Japan featuring two design icons, Pharrell and Nigo. This excites me because the data I read almost daily is telling of a new model and trend.
The morning sky a fiery canvas with vibrant red hues evoking an intense warmth as night falls into a slumber and day awakens.
Until this venture reveals itself, I am curating a playlist. It is a serving from my travels across Africa, the music I’ve heard through hi-fidelity speakers in many bars, the tunes from my global palate. It is the kind of sound that lingers like the scent of someone interesting who just left the room.
It is intended to become a part of the offering and in the meantime helps process my thinking and shapes the vision.
I share it with you, with the hopes that you experience this venture one day.