A CHANCE ENCOUNTER
Condé Nast House & Garden|October 2020
While looking for a new home for her family, the last thing landscape designer Mary Maurel expected was to find a gem in Cape Town’s City Bowl
HEIDI BERTISH AND EDWAIN STEENKAMP
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

when garden designer Mary Maurel came across this house in Cape Town’s City Bowl, she was all but ready to leave the city behind her. Having just had her first son, the new addition to the family meant that she and her husband Marc needed more space than her then-semi-detached house could offer. ‘We were on our way back home after viewing houses in the suburbs when we decided to stop and look at a house in the city,’ she says. It was the first house that she and her husband looked at in the area, and as luck would have it, it would also be the last. ‘It was love at first sight,’ recalls Mary. But like all great loves, it would require a lot of work. The house, set on 800 square metres of land, was in desperate need of a renovation - a total of three renovations in fact - and over several years, Mary transformed the tired building into a vibrant family home, with an impressive garden to match.

This story is from the October 2020 edition of Condé Nast House & Garden.

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This story is from the October 2020 edition of Condé Nast House & Garden.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

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