Petrichor

JOINT MANDATE

A residence anchored in its landscape, designed by award-winning architect Richard Stretton, on 20.677 hectares of indigenous fynbos bordering the Keurbooms Nature Reserve.

Petrichor sits on 20.677 hectares of indigenous fynbos above Plettenberg Bay, bordering the Keurbooms Nature Reserve. The home was designed by award-winning architect Richard Stretton of Koop Design, with ecological design by Matthew Koehorst of Six Kingdoms. Across three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and a 54.68 sqm mezzanine, the residence reads as a sequence of considered rooms rather than a checklist of features.

Materials are selected for their intrinsic qualities and ageing behaviour. Thermory thermally modified pine cladding silvers with time on the exterior. KEIM mineral paint from Germany sits on the interior walls. Weathered, tumbled limestone runs underfoot on the ground floor, beneath quarter-cut oak joinery and African mahogany doors and windows. Italian Quadro stainless-steel taps stand over Dekton worktops in the kitchen and bathrooms. Handmade terracotta tiles from Akashic in Knysna run through the house in three distinct treatments: unglazed black around the Cheminées Philippe fireplace in the lounge, unglazed in the kitchen, and glazed in the bathrooms. Bespoke terracota and sconces by award-winning Durban artist Nindya Bucktowar hang above the dining table and walls, respectively.

The home is fully off-grid: a 16kW solar array with battery storage, a borehole pumping 1,000 litres an hour into 45,000 litres of filtered storage, gas-fired hydronic underfloor heating zoned room by room, a 12.5-metre natural eco-pool biologically filtered through indigenous aquatic plants, and a Finnish sauna pavilion with a Harvia wood-burning stove.

The orientation is the rare one. Where the Plettenberg Bay luxury market sells almost entirely on a sea view, Petrichor faces north onto the Tsitsikamma range and the cliffs of the Keurbooms Nature Reserve. Robberg and the Indian Ocean carry from the east as a secondary register. Beyond the boundary, fynbos trails connect directly into the reserve.