Top Billing features an eco retreat in Stanford - HaesFarm

This week’s show comes to you from the town of Stanford, in the Overberg. Among fynbos some 250 000 years old, home owners Harry Poortman and Steyn Jacobs aren’t simply practicing their organic, sustainable, off the grid philosophy - they’re living in it!

Looking to leave the smallest carbon footprint they can, this inventive duo have spent six years designing and building their urban style home and retreat - Haesfarm.

Harry started a design company in Amsterdam which grew into an agency merging graphic and product design with architecture and interiors. It shows.

A reflexologist, massage therapist and spa management with years of experience in launching health resorts, Steyn’s flair for hospitality and Harry’s background in art and design make any stay here a creative treat.

Individual pieces are grouped like art installations. Since this Dutch entrepreneur invested in South Africa sixteen years ago, his collection has moved with him through three properties and also grown Steyn’s love of design.

This is a place to switch off your phone and connect with nature, art and people.

Treading ever more lightly on the earth is a waking, sleeping quest for this couple and always done in style.

These pioneers live by four slogans reflected around the house. Time is wealth, space is freedom, nature is knowledge and “silence is the ultimate luxury”.

For Steyn, who grew up in Mpumalanga then spent his career in big cities, it’s a return to the farm surrounds of his childhood. To both of them, it is the best of the good life.

Source: Top Billing