Good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon everyone! Welcome - this is
Xavier with Luxury Homes Johannesburg. Today, once again, I have the honour and privilege
to have Francois, from Francois Marais Architects, one of the top architectural firms here in South Africa
taking us on a tour of this beautiful contemporary home here in the Ebotse Golf and Lifestyle Estate.
Without further ado - Francois! Thank you very much, Xavier! When the client
approached us with this residence, the stand is situated on a hill with very beautiful views
but the challenge that we had here is that the stand has got
south-facing views and south-facing entry and because of the views onto the golf course and
what we were trying to achieve with that, we had to design the residents actually facing in reverse
so, facing onto the views but allowing us to get northern light into the particular residence, so
as we move closer towards the residence, you can see that the residence has been designed
in almost a cascading fashion going up towards the hill which gives it almost like a cabana-style
living with the residents opening very much onto the views of from the front and the challenges
that we had to do with as a result of the slope and I will highlight to you - as we move forward now
so as we step over the bridge here, the client wanted very much like a marina-type
of feel with the residents, so a lot of the decorations actually enhance that look and
feel as you can see, there's a beautiful ship that the clients have done on the front door and
you know with the balustrading and the water etc they were trying to emphasize it and as a result
they've also used the color blue also in the residence quite a bit in order to emphasize that.
As we arrive in the entrance, this is indicative of what happens when you have a reverse entry with
the stand and with what we are trying to do is when you enter into a double volume in this case
we have managed to do a triple volume - so from the basement all the way up to the second level
and the staircase then becomes a decorative feature in the back of the residence
where the staircase actually then leads you up to the top as we move through the residence
So, as we move up the staircase, the idea that we wanted is that once you enter the residence when
you return back you actually face over the view into the in the same direction that you entered
and actually having views over the golf course the street and the neighboring surroundings
and as you look towards the side here you will see the beautiful views that open up onto
on this level and it also opens up the whole level with your swimming pool area your entertainment
and everything it's a very much entertainment style designed residence and as we move towards
your kitchen family and dining area you can see a very much open-style design with the living
with you can see the colors of the blues coming in with a very much ship-like and marina-feel within
the residence but a very beautiful open area the client didn't want a lot of detail with bulkheads
and things so we've got a very much flat ceiling as you can see just with beautiful corners as a
decoration they wanted those sleek lines of the residents to feature a bit stronger and for that
reason, we've reduced that that detailing so as you can see the kitchen has a beautiful breakfast
area that opens up onto the area - you can sit in this area overlooking the kitchen. The kitchen
has then a complete view towards the landscape and the area that is completely open onto your balcony
so, from an entertainment and a living point of view, this is a perfect example of how one could
integrate the spray spaces and with this beautiful wide stacking door that we've got here
You get the real enhanced feel of how the spaces actually live and work together with your kitchen, your
dining area here, you can see the dining area starts becoming integrated to the outside when
one opens this area up - the kitchen has views into this section, can service your patio very easily
and very nice sized patio that we've got with your integrated fridges with the braai area on the
outside here and then obviously this opening up with views towards the landscape and the view so
the problem with a stand like this that's situated actually on a hillside is that one loses
your north-facing garden, so for that reason we've pulled the balconies out very far towards
the front, so we can get the sunlight that actually comes over the top of the residence and actually
heats up this area, so actually, this becomes your living entertainment area, and if you want to call
it, your garden although the residence is very maintenance-free as far as garden is concerned
we've got some garden area at the back but this is then your entertainment and your living area
and here you can see the cascading feel that we are creating here uh effectively creates the
balconies that we've got at the bottom and the house steps up towards the back allowing light
to come in as you can see - the sun's still coming into this area now in the late afternoon
as we move across to your swimming pool area and your entertainment area
here we've got a nice patio area which is situated on the outside here which interacts
with your swimming pool we've got a stunning heated swimming pool with the infinity edge
pool you know cascading over the front entrance section and we have then a bar which is integrated
can service this area towards the outside and then can service also a more formalized lounge or a tv
area so if you're watching the games or whatever the bar can service this area it's in a separate
area which is situated on the on the one side of the residence with the stick as almost acting
as a gusset in between everything and actually separating your entertainment areas and your
your living areas from each other and then also in this particular area, we've got your guest room
and guest bathroom here which is located directly off of the lobby here which is
great because from your entertainment area you can use the the bathroom here also from your
family your private area the bathroom is very close by and also with the guest room which
is located here the bathroom actually doubles up as a bathroom for the guest room as well
so as I mentioned earlier the staircase is obviously quite a dynamic design you can see
we've pivoted around the central column just to emphasize the curve and the flow and you've
got views that that look down onto the bottom so effectively trying to emphasize the staircase as
a sculptural element in the center of the residence which then allows you to utilize it
for light ventilation circulation and effectively a sculptural sculptural entity
so moving back towards the lobby as I was mentioning this is an area that manages all
the circulation from this area you've got still beautiful views as you go around and once again
as one enters the staircase and moves up to the top it effectively turns you back onto the view
so you have the experience of moving up the staircase as a sculptural element and overlooking
the view as you can see, Xavier, when you get here there are stunning views that look over the entire
estate from this position here and then from here you overlook your entertainment area
and your swimming pool, so it's actually quite a striking view from the frontier and then with the
entertainment area being elevated on the first floor level, you get the privacy from the street,
so it allows you to to get quite nice privacy from this from the street side and then here you
can see the triple volume that actually looks down into our entrance lobby that we looked up
from a bit earlier and then you get that idea of volume space you know and open and openness
and as we enter onto the landing which initially we had planned it more as a pajama lounge
they're using it as a study as the kids and need this for study space here you can see
what we've done with the light we've tried to get the light in from the top as we said this
is actually north facing, so we bring the light in through the top, so it warms up this section
of the house beautifully and we utilize that heat that we generate here to go through the bedrooms
and at the end of the day, it heats up the bedrooms in the same way because all of the bedrooms are
situated to have a view so this is just one of the bedrooms as you can
see here also a nice little equipped study that is together with that particular bedroom
so you can see the views we've got all of the residents all of the bedrooms in the
residence then face onto the view all of the bedrooms have access to balcony areas
and it allows for a very functional residence that lives to the outside nice views - it's beautiful and
warm in here as you can feel with the the light and the heat that we get from the northern side
but also what we've done is we've created a little balcony space on the northern side
here so that you can even view art and move out of the space to the balcony
moving to our main bedroom
so very nice spacious main bedroom design and with a little lounge area in here facing onto the view
with sliding doors and windows that open up that entire section so that one has maximum view from
your main bedroom looking out to the outside and and then what we've done is we've equipped this
with a dressing room which we can close off so we can close the bedroom off from the
dressing area nice sized dressing area which then leads directly through to the main bathroom
so in the main bathroom what we've done in here you can see very nice pointed
area for your basins allowing a nice area for your makeup and then what we've done in this
particular area we actually did a small raised section here to a shower that is actually an
elevated position which emphasizes the high level windows on on on that end with your
bath which is then situated beautifully as you enter as a feature and then this leads
to the outside and we've got an enclosed courtyard here with an outside shower in this in this area
so just moving through to the outside just to so you can get a feel of what we were trying
to achieve with the design I think from here you can really see the curves of the residence
and also what we were trying to achieve you can see how the light actually comes in from this
area at the moment so even the western sun here is into this area heating up your swimming pool and
your entertainment area which is a really nice nice feature and the cascading balconies that
you can see on the right hand side with the double volume glass window feature that we've created in
order to emphasize um you know this open feel and triple volume that we were trying to try to get
so just in recap with the levels that we have created in the resonance effectively
we've separated your entertainment and your living area onto the first level
we've utilized the garages and a gym at the bottom in order to raise the residence up so the whole
entertainment area and living area are all on one level and then your bedrooms are located on the
top with views over the entire estate. I think you hit the nail on the head there, Francois!
This is truly a stunning, stunning, stunning
contemporary family home - as always, you can clearly see your typical characteristics
and your style from the indoor-outdoor, as well as the staircase! Guys - thank you so much - any questions
you have, make sure to reach out Francois. His details are below this video!
Thank you so much for taking the time to follow us on this tour! Have an awesome afternoon. Thank you, Xavier.