Firstly, there’s the name: Safari Moon. Just two words bestow a world of evocative bushveld magic. Secondly, you respond at once to the visual impact.
Although it’s a commercial lodge with lavish decor, it still feels like the private home of your ebullient friend who happens to be wonderfully wealthy, slightly eccentric and fabulously talented. Which pretty much sums up Safari Moon’s owner-designer-decorator Nicola Leitch.
Safari Moon hosted Tom Cruise, and director Christopher McQuarrie for several months during the filming of Mission Impossible 8 The Final Reckoning, as well as personalities from Down-Under who competed in Get Me Out of Here, I’m a Celebrity (Australia).
An eye for potential
She belongs to a particular brand of interior stylists, loosely defined as possessing an eye for potential, a radar for brilliant finds and, crucially, access to storage space. They’re stashers. These people cannot resist dragging huge carved doors back from Rajasthan knowing full well they won’t fit conventional door frames. They tuck away an antique bureau with fetching lines because they just know they’ll find a spot for it one day. On road trips they stuff the car with far too many stumbled-on finds and blithely tune-out the protests of hot, perplexed husbands, “But what’s it for?” Of course there’s no answer to this because how to explain an inner knowing that although it’s not for anything right now, it’s for one day? Someone may have to drive the 800km home with a wooden giraffe jabbing into the back of their neck, so what. The key is that they always, but always, yield to that leap of heart when they sight a lovely thing. They also have a truly remarkable way of creating space in an already over-packed vehicle. So what if someone has to drive the next 800km with a wooden giraffe jabbing into the back of their neck. The key is that they always, but always, yield to that particular leap of heart when they sight a lovely thing. “I scan everywhere I go and I stash massively. When I find something I love it always gets used somehow, sometime.” Her inventive skrik vir niks* re-purposing makes certain of it.
That Indian door? Kaboom! Now it’s an alcove at Safari Moon. That huge velvet sofa that’s far too big for any room in the house? Tada! Prize position baby, piled with cushions on the verandah.
Safari Moon’s interior is a treasure trove. There are the custom-made beds from Splinters, embroidered fabrics from Kaross, glassware from Sophia Conran, cutlery from France, framed Ardmore tablecloths framed and hung like canvases, tea towels converted into cushion covers, a woven daybed morphed into a coffee table, art by Lionel Smit, bronzes from Charles Grieg… And so it goes until, abracadabra, everything is drawn together into this inviting, lush panoply resonating joie de vivre, igniting the senses and proclaiming here’s to life!
This global nomad is as much at home traipsing the high-toned cobbles of St Tropez as she is scouting fabrics from coco palm stalls in a Vilanculos mercado, so the idea of building and setting up a new lodge in a new town made Nicola Leitch’s mouth water. It came about through her husband Guy’s family roots in the Klaserie wildlife reserve.
I scan everywhere I go and I stash massively. When I find something I love it always gets used somehow, sometime.
“We were living in Cape Town where we have two other properties but he was always moaning about the Cape weather. When we came to Hoedspruit for a wedding it reminded us of how fantastic the climate and lifestyle is. It dawned on us that we could split our time between the Cape and here.”
Not given to the timid approach, Nicola dived right in. A three-bedroomed house with “good bones” was located in the Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate and she sketched the concept for its transformation into a breathtaking lodge.
“It was so exciting to transform a basic Bushveld family home into our dream lodge with the wonderful size and space our vast African bush makes possible.”
A glamorous mishmash
With her love of interiors and fashion plus a lifetime of entrepreneurial experience designing and decorating homes, hotels and her former African Queen shops, Safari Moon showcases all of her favourite occupations and talents
“I’ve always loved building – the bashing down, revamping, decorating and designing. I’ve learned everything through hard labor,” she roars with laughter.
The final 480 square metres – the rooms and bathrooms are huge – abound in Nicola’s distinctive touch. It’s not a look that easily fits categorisation. “I’d say it’s a coherent mishmash; glamorous but homely at the same time.”
“I’d say it’s a coherent mishmash – glamorous but homely at the same time.”
Images Emma Gatland / Design & Interiors Nicola Leitch / Safari Moon /