Fairview Homestead | flower arrangement

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31 Jan Flowers from the garden

Posted at 11:34h in My Guest House Life, Our garden by Philda Benkenstein 0 Comments

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I have known the Benkensteins and their Fairview for my whole life (literally) and during a recent stay found myself creating a slightly excessive collection of arrangements from the garden of the beautiful and carefully constructed second ‘home’ , the wonderful Guest House that is Fairview.

THE BLOG

When I had been running the B&B for close on 15 years I told myself that it was time to start writing down all these stories about the restoration process, the day to day joys and frustrations of running a guest house and of course all the recipes and tips that I'm forever dishing out. Two of our children regularly contribute - our daughter Nelleke Elston, a chef specializing in food styling, as well as our son Alex Benkenstein who shares a love for the ocean with his dad and oldest brother and has an ease with words that his mom stands in awe of. In the category "My B&B Life" I share the stories of a house and garden, lovingly restored and share with our guests.

Living in a listed building

We bought Fairview in 1994 and took up the challenge to restore this historic George landmark. The challenge in restoring and maintaining any old building remains to stay true to the authenticity of the structure. This means: Do your research before you start as this will help you understand the important and historic features of your property. We contacted family members (amongst them an 84-year-old great-granddaughter of Koos and Miems Stander. Her mother lived at Fairview from age 4 and told many precious stories about day to day life to her daughter, who then passed it on to us in a 13-page letter). We also spend hours going through the archives at the local library. A common mistake is to buy a heritage property and think you are going to do it up in your spare time. There is upkeep on any home, but the truth is that the upkeep on a heritage building is far more expensive and technical than on a modern building. For us, waterproofing of the clay walls proved to be a major challenge, as was the stripping of the many layers of paint to expose the lovely wood again. All the plumbing and electric wiring had to be redone and our roof had to be replaced – it would have been totally unrealistic to think that this was a project that could be done while still living in the home. Find an architect and builder who has an interest in heritage buildings and understands the law regarding heritage building restoration and renovation. Stay true to the heart of your home: unsympathetic additions, alterations, and repairs to historic buildings can be reversed. This will ensure the original plan, form or appearance of the building isn’t lost forever – for example, we removed a double garage that altered the square Georgian shape of the original building. This approach is often more expensive, but will ultimately help to protect the character of your home. Use traditional building materials wherever possible as original historic materials are unique and make a major contribution to the character and significance of a building.The four chimneys and fireplaces needed radical repairs – two of them we replaced with antique Victorian fireplaces in a similar style that we sourced in Cape Town. Most of the light fittings were removed and had to be replaced with antique ones again. No material remains in perfect condition and sometimes the damage is beyond restoration – eight of our windows had to be replaced and were meticulously duplicated using the old frames as templates. Modern technology and materials can sometimes be necessary, but I would recommend expert advice to ensure compatibility. Recording: some kinds of work, especially where they involve digging beneath floorboards or entering wall cavities behind modern wall finishes, offer an opportunity to learn more about your home. Take every opportunity to record any historic material or features of interest. When we removed the paint from the doors we found the remnants of decorative stain work similar to that found on the doors of Langenhoven’s home in Oudshoorn. Do not look at the building in isolation. When we bought the 3800m² property it was immediately put to us that we could make some money by subdividing – can you imagine a house the size of Fairview on a post stamp sized grounds? In the long run, it would have diminished the value of the property far more than the money we could have made by cutting up the grounds and Desmond would not have been able to develop our beautiful gardens. Accept that restoration will be an ongoing process. In 2013 we embarked on yet another phase, this time renovation more than restoration. New garages were built for private use at the Smith Street entrance, a staircase was added to the inner courtyard to give access to two upstairs guest rooms, the little storeroom below the swimming pool was restored and turned into a small guest room and 4 of the bedrooms were renovated and re-decorated. Every year we seem to embark on some major project – this year it will be the cobblestone parking area that needs replacement.The fact that we run a guest house from home does help in financing and justifying the expense of ongoing renovation and upkeep.