The house has a contemporary look, but actually dates back to the 1920s and was inspired by Herbert Baker, the legendary architect who built many of the great historic houses in Parktown and Westcliff, two of the first residential areas developed in Johannesburg. Sculpted Italian cypresses create balance in the landscape. Fronting the house is a narrow, black-painted, reflective pool that is overlooked by a Kobus Haupt sculpture of a young girl.
Containerised kumquat trees (foreground) create interest with their edible fruit and scented flowers. The blunt-cut cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens ‘Stricta’) and styled brush cherry trees (Syzygium paniculatum) give the symmetrical lines of house and pool a frame of French formality, contributing both stature and grandeur. The small pond has a bronze cherub holding a swan (a sentimental family gift), and is a playground to frogs. ‘I love the sound of their croaking and singing at night,’ says Krysia. Being close to the Johannesburg Zoo, herons are regular visitors and their familiar pose of standing on one leg lends a certain elegance to the setting, despite the fact that they tend to pounce on the unsuspecting frogs.
Krysia and Oliver love to entertain and, as their dining room is rather small, they built a pool room that not only seats up to 14, but balances the house at the opposite end. All the side walls have windows that stack back to give an uninterrupted 360-degree garden view. With full catering facilities, the pool room is independent of the house kitchen. The swimming pool is framed in dark green slate, enhanced by a subtle bevelled edge. Over time, the tiles have faded to a lovely, aged patina. Standard potato bush (Solanum rantonnetii) in Thai dragon pots are poolside features.
A creative idea to add height: the bougainvillea is trained up as a multi-stemmed standard.
A dramatic ‘first impression’ is created by the black-and-gold wrought-iron gates designed by Krysia.
The table set for lunch in the pool room. ‘People never look up at a ceiling, because there’s usually nothing to see,’ comments Krysia drily. She commissioned artist Richard Brown to execute her very own floral-inspired ‘Sistine Chapel’ ceiling.
The strong colours of the vibrant flower arrangement echo those of the ceiling panels.
A close-up of a table setting, clearly demonstrating Krysia’s flair for the dramatic.
At the back of the house a high retaining stone wall, which forms part of the boundary, has been visually enhanced by brick arches reminiscent of a Roman aqueduct, each of which is filled with fragrant jasmine in terracotta pots.
A new addition: a bridge manufactured from stainless steel with Brazilian teak flooring is suspended to connect the parking with the newly built studio behind the main house. Below is the vegetable and herb garden, designed along the lines of a French potager.
The suburb of Westcliff was presumably named for its steep stone cliffs and dramatic view to the horizon over Johannesburg West. Most of the houses have a backdrop of sheer rock, and gardens are carved out of the more level frontage. Krysia and Oliver Back are a pair of artistic perfectionists: Krysia, an adventurous interior designer, and Oliver with the strong genetic input of his architect mother, Carmel Back, who designed some of the country’s most interesting buildings before her untimely death. When they bought the property, the house was ‘delightfully dilapidated, the garden overgrown with prickly rose brambles’. An exhausted and unsightly tennis court took up much of the space.
Together, over a period of 18 years, they worked to transform the property into what it is today. The look is timeless; classical symmetry blended with a modern twist.
Wide steps flanked by retaining walls and terraces, to level the sharply sloping site, were built from stone excavated from the property. Krysia and Oliver were inspired by ideas gleaned from holidays in France, and they pay generous tribute to the influence of British design guru Sir Terence Conran’s magnificent garden in Provence.
Despite the rocky terrain, Westcliff’s early gardeners planted huge numbers of trees, presumably to provide shade from the hot west afternoon sun. These are now mature, and the Backs inherited statuesque plane trees and tall cypresses. ‘These provided good bones,’ explains Oliver. Strategically placed sculptures complement the strong lines of the trees.
‘My theatrical side makes me seek the original, the dramatic.’