Completed Home | House Balt

We love an opportunity to showcase our magnificent, on-trend ranges and really flex our design and décor muscles with a ground-up home build. Mr and Mrs Peter Balt’s bushveld build was just such an opportunity.

Monaghan Farm near Lanseria is one of those rare phenomena in Gauteng:

it offers a wide-open safe space in the pristine bushveld for families to create their dream veld-inspired hideaways. Oh, and a river runs through it.

Let’s quickly bring you up to speed on the backdrop to House Balt. Monaghan Farm offers city refugees SAFE SPACE. 1300 pristine acres of it. And only 3% of it is set aside for building. 7km of river frontage winds past and the eco homes all have picturesque lookout decks. This is arguably Gauteng’s most future-ready, deluxe low carbon living including rainwater catchment, a complete absence of fossil power, with dwelling spaces designed in harmony with the protected sanctuary around them.

The Balts were drawn to Monaghan Farm’s spectacular natural scenery, AAA security, leading-edge smart tech and environmentally mindful design. They consulted with Veld Architects - well-known for their award-winning future-forward design philosophy – and like-minded developers Helder Rock, to translate their dream of a safe haven in the bush into stunning reality. This no ordinary home (which you’ve probably already deduced, Sherlock, thanks to Elske Kritzinger’s extraordinary photography).

It was our privilege and pleasure to bring our LiveGreen décor expertise to the party and curate our most beautiful eco-chic interior and exterior finishes so that the Balts can live beautifully in their super-sophisticated yet simple bush hideaway.

Italtile North Riding’s Quintin van Loggerenberg was our decor guy on the ground, who worked with the Balts and their consultants to the mood board and implement a beautiful palette with grey and charcoal accents. Focus areas were the bathrooms,  scullery, living areas, feature fireplace, garage and staff rooms. 

Quintin created his design fulcrum around Sant’Agostino’s magnificent Shadestone warm grey tiles. In our opinion, Sant’Agostino is up there among Europe’s top tile manufacturers, and Shadestone really works its stone-look magic out in the bush. The modern tiles offer a deep, almost three-dimensional quality and an almost infinite number of graphic variances; this adds a strongly authentic personality. Stonier than stone, if that’s possible! And perfect for South Africa’s indoor/outdoor living: durable, hard-wearing, and easy to maintain

Quintin created a beautiful, deeper stone contrast on the feature fireplace with Pietra Charcoal natural stone cladding (sourced exclusively for Italtile) from Global Stone.

He also had oversight of custom cut Global Stone mosaics for the showers.

The Balt’s bathrooms showcase a gorgeous selection of Italtile’s contemporary luxe:

-The Tivoli New Road Range (an elegantly modern, 100% Italian, eco range of sink and basin mixers with straight edges and round corners… and the Tivoli 10 year guarantee). FYI, Italtile and Tivoli share the same LiveGreen ethos: the manufacturing process where the plating plant has zero discharge; recycling all water used during manufacture and finally, the range offers a controlled, reduced flow rate of 6 litres per minute. 

-The Laufen Rimless WC, with its smart, simplified hygiene solutions and intelligent flushing.

-Tivoli cisterns and actuator plates for Waterwise flushing.

-Aquarius baths, beautiful budget beaters that also offer electricity bill relief: hot water retains its heat longer in a perspex/acrylic bath. (It’s a durable, easy-to-clean surface, too.)

-The master bathrooms feature the exquisite V&A Terrassa freestanding tub with its iconic, slim, tall sides. Little-known gasp-worthy fact: You’ll find V&A Quarrycast®   tubs and basins in some of the world’s most glamorous bathrooms, but they’re made right here in Worcester. Silky smooth, warm to the touch, eco-chic, and every angle whispers Hollywood star quality. We completed the glam bathroom vibe with matching V&A Terrassa basins, deep, oval and just as gorgeous as their ‘deep soak’ tub sisters.

-the small guest loo features a Laufen Kartell countertop basin. This little stunner is the result of Italian/Swiss collaboration between iconic Kartell design and Laufen manufacture. Ultra-strong and super-slim ceramic walls are made with Laufen’s ground-breaking SaphirKeramikTM, which is literally as tough as nails.

We started this ode to House Balt by testifying to our great and abiding love of working in tandem with architects and developers on a home build… but we’re equally passionate about an existing home reno, too. Nothing more satisfying than seeing a transformation take shape. If you are looking to build or renovate this year, if we were you, we’d speak to us. That’s the wise road to beautiful living (in our humble opinion).

Inspired? Then let your dreams of eco-chic nests take shape!

Live beautifully.

Ciao.