A Karoo farmhouse filled with

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Pieter Hoffman believes that here under the hot Karoo sun you have to create your own magic with whatever you can lay your hands on. For him, it all started one day in his post-matric year while sitting on Twist Niet farm’s stoep in that blissful silence so synonymous with the platteland. In solitude. No dogs at his feet, but a supply of wors and salted rib drying in the air-drying cabinet on the stoep. It was the year 2000, and Pieter had come to the realisation that he had no clue where his life was headed.

Twist Niet, the farm his dad Stephen bought before he retired, is situated about 30km from Vanwyksvlei and 110km from Carnarvon, the kind of small towns where the local kids gather round when a city car stops in front of the co-op.

At first, very little magic was to be found in this place. And no electricity either. Pieter had done the necessary repairs to the dams, and in the evenings a PM9 battery radio was his only company. “I made the house just liveable and had a simple cement screed cast over the earthen floor,” he says. “The farm needed so much work.”

His ultimate goal was to have a beautiful farmhouse with wooden floors and timber doorframes. “I was so disappointed. The run-down house with its earthen floors

Twist Niet’s previously dilapidated farmhouse is now worthy of its place in the landscape – framed, as it were, by the low wall that Pieter had built in front. “It anchors the house,” he says. Solar power brought electricity to Twist Niet at last.

Solar power installed by Danbez Traders and layers of carpets seemed far removed from my dreams. You could see that the farm had provided the bare minimum for previous generations. Their progress could be measured by the layers of carpets and paint,” he says in his laid-back Karoo accent.

And this is how the house remained for almost 18 years while Pieter first went to Stellenbosch College (now Boland College) to study tourism, and then to London on a work visa. While life was one big party for many other 20-yearolds, Pieter saved every pound he could. His dad, a bank manager at Carnarvon at the time, relayed many heartrending stories of farms that had to be sold out of necessity, and this left a lasting impression on Pieter.

After several years spent in London, Pieter returned to Carnarvon where he bought his first house in 2006, little realising that it would be the start of his 26-room Lord Carnarvon guesthouse group, which consisted of the Officer’s Mess, Lord Carnarvon Small Hotel and the Lord’s Kitchen restaurant.

In 2017, Pieter felt he’d accomplished his mission in Carnarvon: his guesthouses were doing well and he’d bought the Medisynekas gift shop and pharmacy – then his old dream of a farmstead with wooden floors resurfaced. >>

Before

Pendant lamp from Herholdt’s Electrical Wholesalers; bedding from Volpes; throws from MRP Home

The main bedroom near the front door was part of a larger lounge which was divided into two bedrooms. A structural steel cable is just visible near the ceiling. Gerrit Louw of Carnarvon Building Contractors made the four-poster bed from square tubing based on “a picture in Pieter’s head”. The round rug comes from the Milnerton Market and the woven rug was bought on auction.

Pendant lamp from Herholdt’s Electrical Wholesalers; throw from The Cotton Company

With respect to the past Pieter began to look at Twist Niet’s dilapidated farmhouse with new eyes. “Life is so short; how many houses can I still renovate?” he asked himself philosophically, deciding then and there that he would use what he had on hand. Old window frames and doorframes from the Carnarvon houses he had restored lay waiting in the barn.

“The more one can keep things in their original form, the better a home’s story. Tannie Bettie Vermeulen, who now lives in a retirement village in Oudtshoorn, was born here. Her children still farm nearby and if she were to visit today, she would recognise the original hatrack at the front door,” says Pieter.

The interior layout was impractical and unsociable, with quite a distance between the kitchen at the back and a lounge in front.

But in a house in which cables have been strung from exterior wall to exterior wall to reinforce the structure, the solution to your layout problems isn’t as simple as breaking out walls. In fact, Pieter had a new wall built (pictured above) to divide the original lounge at the front door into two new bedrooms.

Only one wall was demolished between a bedroom and the original dining room to create the new large lounge. Gerrit Louw of Carnarvon Building Contractors, who did the construction work, was au fait with the structural cables used in old farmhouses and with walls built with bricks baked in a kiln. The latter were simply formed with farm soil, with chaff to bind them.

“It was a case of tackling the job a little at a time; we just demolished the wall out from underneath the cables,” says Pieter.

The Frans Claerhout sketch above the candle is one of a few that Pieter bought after visiting the artist.

[T H E D É C O R : A JO U R N E Y B A C K I N T I M E] Pieter has fond memories, down to the finest detail, of the furniture, glassware and even the aromas of the homes he visited with his parents when he was a child – including the smell of Aga stoves.

The biggest influence on his style was his Ouma Kitty van Heerden, who once served as the mayor of Vosburg. Her name crops up repeatedly in his conversation. He recalls that during Hoffman family holidays in Gansbaai, the two of them, as well as his mom Lizette, would head straight for Dit & Dat, a secondhand shop, the day they arrived.

Pieter says that when he hunts for treasures at Cape Town’s Milnerton Market, he is transported to those childhood visits. He has also become such a regular at Hofmeyr-Mills auctions that he and co-owner Paul Hablutzel are now fast friends.

Pieter gets nostalgic when he talks about the old Karoo auctions. “A man with a copper bell and signboard would walk through the streets beforehand with a list of items to promote the auction.”

Those were wonderful times, but Pieter remembers the sad stories just as clearly. “A tannie would sit under a fig tree on her last kitchen chair and watch her entire life being auctioned off, down to the stool on which she was still sitting. But now, that generation is a thing of the past,” he muses resignedly.

It’s these memories that make this place so special for Pieter. “This house is my escape and refuge. It’s full of significant and meaningful pieces that I’ve been given by people who have had a huge impact on my life, and it feels good. It’s awesome to be able to leave your mark on the world.” >>

This courtyard is situated between the farmhouse and a one-bedroom cottage (left). Pieter bought the black garden set from a classmate’s mom, Elsabé Potgieter, when she moved.

Plunge pool built by and paving stones made by Carnarvon Building Contractors; rug from Decofurn; white towel from Mungo Design; light grey towel and black-and-white sarong from The Cotton Company The back stoep (right) with its Adirondack chairs, or “peacock

feather chairs” as Pieter refers to them, and 70s-style planters It’s encircled by an ash bush screen, similar to those that nomadic cattle farmers would stack to protect themselves and Mollie takes a nap near the fire.

Pieter with his dogs Bamsie and Mollie on

gets the afternoon sun and has a view of the fire pit (below).

their fires from wind back in the day. It’s replenished every year, eventually forming an impenetrable and compact barrier. the front stoep.

Exterior and interior walls painted with white Plascon Micatex