South African fashion designer Jenni Button finds the perfect home on Table Mountain in Cape Town
The loft-like space tucked into a mountain provides the perfect canvas for Jenni Button’s love of painting
Fashion designer Jenni Button’s “ultimate dream was to have a New York loft in a wild forest setting and I never thought it would be possible. It’s like a big art studio”.
The South African, her petite frame dwarfed by the incredible loft-like space she discovered, made her home on mountain slopes in Hout Bay, Cape Town. When house hunting, the South African fashion and interior designer was looking for a refuge where she could paint – Button studied fine art and has recently rekindled her romance with oil paint. She found it in this unique house with its immense proportions – hand-built by the previous owner a decade ago.
“As I walked up that driveway I knew this is where I wanted to live,’ Button says. The gate, incidentally, sports a sign that warns visitors “4x4’s only” – and reaching the house requires you to hike up 40 coarsely cut stone steps. With its dominating reclaimed factory windows and simple silhouette, the home doesn’t reveal much of what you can expect inside when you arrive. It’s hard to capture the sheer volume of the space – but the word “cavernous” comes to mind – partly because of the fact that it is secreted into the side of a mountain, and partly because the building is enriched with stone features, exposed brick walls and rough wooden floors.
Button laughs that the house had many ‘Fred Flintstone’ features when she purchased it, and her initial focus has been on bringing the various elements of the two-level building together with a consistent stone grey palette – and of course taming the vast garden, which has taken up most of her time and energy.
I can’t stick to just one style. I enjoy the juxtaposition of different influences and textures
Clearly it has unlocked her creative juices – the large wall in the lounge area is freckled with portraits that she has painted. While Button admits to an affinity for quite masculine design, her treasure trove of furniture suggests otherwise. A self-confessed magpie, Jenni’s portrait wall is flanked by an ornate hand-carved antique door from India and surrounded by a compendium of Eames and Le Corbusier originals (design investments she made in her early twenties), Chinese cabinets and traditional country French furniture.
“I can’t stick to just one style. I enjoy the juxtaposition of different influences and textures. And I think the items I have collected over the years work here because it is such an eclectic space itself,” Button says.
Amid the stark grey shades and “taupes and neutrals that I love” is a persistent thread of bronze, copper and brass – a gleaming bowl, a striking chandelier. “I love the warmth and richness of these shades. But I change my house around every couple of months. So you could come back and discover this wall is covered with acid yellow paintings,” she laughs. “It’s the beauty of having a house like this which is such a canvas.”