Is there a hideaway in the world where you open your eyes and with a small adjustment of your down pillows, watch whales breaching from the cocooned warmth of your bed? Lie quite still and count the seconds between the giant swells of Walker Bay pushed by a strong north-easter. The seven metre waves undulating over Great Whites and Southern Rights ‘demand respect’ say the locals who surf them. So do the creators of this extraordinary home that is so sensitively rooted to the land. Their choice was to ‘grow’ the house organically on the cliffs of Hermanus with rock in muted earth shades of pink and ochre, quarried and set painstakingly down over three years. From the ocean, it is at one with the skyline of clinging fynbos and the cliff face.
