Belle, June/July 2016

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This London home delivers surprises at every turn, from its powder-blue wonder walls to the labyrinth at its heart.

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The views over the parklike fields are stunning. “This is really why we

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he owners of this long, horizontal holiday house, Lloyd and Elizabeth, dubbed it Casa Comprida, Portuguese for Long House. It’s right on the beach in a game reserve in Mozambique, and its almost throwaway name actually reveals something quite profound about the house’s character. The influence of Portuguese culture on the former colony is still tangible, although here, on a peninsula jutting out into the ocean and looking over a bay near the town of Vilanculos, the overwhelming presence is of nature and a sense of vastness.

The idyllic setting is all pristine white beaches, crystal clear ocean and natural vegetation. Lloyd and Elizabeth and their two teenage children like to arrive by boat after flying from Johannesburg to Vilanculos, the nearest town. “As you get off the plane, you can smell Mozambique,” says Elizabeth.

“It’s just amazing. At the airport, you catch a lift down to the beach. Then you literally roll up your trousers, wade through the water, and jump into a boat that takes you across the bay, right to the beach and up to the house.”

From the water, the fronded jekka roof of the villa peeps through the greenery, marking a man-made horizon on the dune. Otherwise, it is concealed by indigenous rehabilitated bush.

Before it became a line on the horizon, the villa was a line in the sand. After finding the site, the owners and their architect, Andrew Makin of designworkshop : sa, went to visit it. As they discussed their ideas, Andrew drew a sketch in the sand. “The idea of a mainly linear building made of a series of linked pavilions with one floating floor line and one roof line was formed there on the beach,” he says. Although that sketch registered the main actions, it’s not exactly what was built. “In that sketch, the living room was in the middle with bedrooms on either side, but in the final design, the living room is on the end. That sketch also didn’t approach the backof-house requirements – storage, solar power and staff accommodation,” says Andrew.

The long shape floating over the dune made practical sense. “You’d want all of the places where the owners and their guests will be to face the ocean, because that’s the reason you are there,” Andrew says. And, as Elizabeth adds, it avoids creating a hierarchy. “So all the rooms are equally important.”

There’s no fussing about which guest or family member gets the better room.

The separate pavilions mean the arrangement is flexible: with many visitors all the rooms can be opened. If there are just two people, the main living area and directly adjacent bedroom can be used, and the others not opened at all. The “back-of-house” utilities are set perpendicular to the main horizontal space protruding back into the bush, creating a series of courtyards that scale down the landscape before the house opens up to the ocean in front. This spatial scaling intensifies both the vastness of the terrain and the intensity of containment in the courtyards.

Mornings at Casa Comprida are spent fishing or collecting shells on the beach, sometimes sailing the catamaran or waterskiing. Or there’s snorkelling on the different reefs and whale watching (“from a distance,” says Elizabeth). “We’ve seen dugongs at times, but they’re very shy,” she adds. “We also have game drives through the bush. The birdwatching is

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SPEED READ » Creative director Daniel Giles bought the Palm Springs family home of modernist architect Donald Wexler. » A fan of flat-roofed houses with glass and beams since childhood, Daniel set about restoring the house, with the help of the architect, replacing the original materials where needed. » Terrazzo floors were laid throughout and a limited colour palette of grey and white was employed to let the simplicity of the architecture shine. » The garden is an integral part of the overall design and makes reference to the desert landscape with extensive use of boulders, rocks, pebbles and hardy, structured plants. » Although the project has been going for seven years it is continuing – a true labour of love.

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