The Sunday News
ZIMBABWEAN entrepreneur and home-owner, Beks Ndlovu, recently had his home situated at Matopo Hills featured in South Africa’s premier television show for home, lifestyle, travel and celebrities, Top Billing. His home became perhaps the first home in Bulawayo and nearby Matabeleland South to feature in the programme, with a whole television crew coming down for the shoot. Below is the write up from the show’s website.
The best of the good life is a home off the grid, out of cell range, in Matobo Hills and a vintage Model T Ford to get you there.
We’ve come a long way over the Limpopo, up here to Matobo Hills to see this and it’s worth every mile it took to get here.
This is the weekend escape of Beks and Sophia Ndlovu, near the World Heritage Site of Matobo Hills. It’s a brief drive from Bulawayo for Beks and his family. He founded and is the CEO of an adventure safaris operation in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia. When he wants to get away from it all it’s here, to the land of his ancestors, that he comes.
They called the house Khayelitshe, Ndebele for “house in stone”, but one of the first features you notice is the auto-parts outdoor lounge suite — born of Beks’ fertile design mind. Designing and building their home from scratch, Beks conceived the blueprint in his head, a good while before the build. The wood and stone were far more than stylistic choices.
Colour brings textures and prints together out here on the veranda. Mixed in with Indian pieces, some features have been locally crafted in keeping with Beks’ desire to make the most of homegrown skill — from across the continent.
The Ndlovus see their feet as firmly rooted in African soil, but equally as citizens of the world. It shows in their mix of North, East, West and Southern African styles. Come three on a Friday afternoon it’s destination Matobo with no Wi-Fi or cell signal — just the family connecting with nature.
It’s first and foremost a family home to the Ndlovus and their nine, eight and five-year-old children.
Beks’ first step on meeting Germany-born nurse Sophia, was to convince her that he needed permanent nursing. Her passion for volunteer work here in Zim and his love for African conservation made them a fine match and every day they wake up here they consider a gift. When he first met Sophia, they spent their free days hiking and exploring the area. They fell in love with its beauty and sense of energy, so much so that they were married here in 2003. From then on they knew they would build a home in this land of the aboriginal people of southern Africa.
It was a unique privilege being able to buy a two-hundred-and-forty-hectare tract of land in this magical area and even if you find yourself with nothing but a rock to sit on — it’s a pretty impressive rock!
Great Kingdoms come and go but out here, there’s a sense of permanence and perspective. Beks considers himself lucky to be its guardian for a while, and his children after him. — www.topbilling.com
