OPEN SEAS

This St. James seaside cottage offers the best sea views possible from a colourful, but natural interior

- LORI CHEN

The cottage lies on a hill above a coastal stretch that is known for its rocky shores, tidal pools and colourful beach huts.

A dreamy seaside cottage in a Cape village with a candy-colored interior and a sweeping ocean-facing deck strikes the perfect balance between fun and functionality.

The new owners of this beach cottage, tucked into the mountain above the seaside village of St James in Cape Town, knew that the house needed vision and TLC. However, the charming features and breezy lifestyle it promised was precisely the kind of project floral designers Dané Erwee and Chris Willemse had been aching to get their hands on. 'We held out for a decade to find a property that had uninterrupted views,' explains Dané, one half of the creative team behind Cape Town's floral and event company OKASIE. A game-changing deck was added to capture the prized views, adding liveability and space to the footprint, but internally space was still a premium. In a bold but brilliant move to solve this, they reconfigured the interior by slotting bathrooms into what was an unnecessary passage hallway, says Dané.

There were a series of stone walls made from the granite of the mountain slopes that the property was built on, but the majority had partially collapsed on the house. Dané explains that the walls had to be reinforced, rebuilt and the rubble-filled soil rehabilitated. 'We filled the garden with indigenous plants, so it needs little maintenance now. But there are also plants like hydrangeas tucked amongst them - greenery and flowers that do so well in the climate and we love to work with.'