Back To The Future

Is This Retro-Futurist Cliffhanger Cape Town's Stupendous house?

- Julian Treger

One of the greatest virtues in life is to be brave, ambitious and have a clear vision. The same is true of building great homes. And that certainly was the philosophy behind the extraordinary Pengilly House residence, which landed on the hill behind Clifton beach in Cape Town, seemingly from another dimension.

The house is the culmination of the enthusiasm of Lloyd Pengilly and his son Hanno for South Africa and its natural beauty, but also reflects Hanno’s passion for mid-century architecture and design.

The Pengillys had always had an apartment on the beach at Clifton but when a large parcel of land around Nettleton Road opened up, they had the opportunity to acquire several adjacent stands along a unique kink in the cliff – a wind-protected spot of remarkable stillness. They ended up with three plots and then ‘to do it justice had to do something exceptional’. They also wanted to create something at once timeless and futuristic and so gravitated to the idea of a future vision rooted in the past.