Combining boldly colourful interiors with a forest-inspired verticality, this Cape Town, South Africa home is a unique and exuberant treat.

WORDS Robyn Alexander PHOTOGRAPHY Greg Cox/Bureaux PRODUCTION Adri Clery

Some houses are a wonderful surprise.

It’s often impossible to know exactly what lies behind someone’s front door – that’s what the privacy of home means, after all – but nevertheless, we assume many things before crossing a threshold. We know where we are in terms of city and neighbourhood; we pick up on clues from the architecture; we anticipate a look and feel of a space.

None of these signs and signals, however, could prepare a first-time visitor for the bursts of exuberant colour and playful energy that characterise Gary Sher’s home in Cape Town, South Africa. A creative entrepreneur whose eclectic CV includes stints in fashion, design and online retail, Gary says that people experiencing his home for the first time “are frequently pretty overwhelmed and excited” by all the vibrant colour within.

“It’s probably because they’re just unused to seeing so much,” he says.

The house was built around 2012, and is one of two adjoining three-storey homes perched neatly on a steep slope, with an apartment slotted into the space beneath them. It was the latter that Gary first viewed when looking to purchase a property. He had viewed 65 homes in two years, he recalls, when in 2020 he came with a sales agent to see the tucked-away apartment. Not much taken with that space, he agreed to take a look at this property, which at that point was also for sale, albeit at a price well beyond his budget.

The owners, however, were keen to sell. So the price rapidly edged downwards – it was the uncertain time of the pandemic lockdowns – and after a few months, Gary decided he’d take the plunge.

Among its various charms was the home’s position: it’s situated high up on the slopes of Lion’s Head in the sought-after suburb of Tamboerskloof, with breathtaking views of the city and the world-renowned facade of Table Mountain.

“It was like a clean canvas, really,” Gary says of the interior of the house then, describing the grey with red accents as “rental-style”. And what a canvas it has turned out to be, functioning as Gary’s personal gallery and jumbo-sized cabinet of curiosities. He has always been an inveterate gatherer of what he terms “collections on collections”, and his home also includes a designated space for his own creative work, including pottery, hence the spacious workshop and kiln.

It’s very clear that quirk and humour attract him most, whether showcased in the form of unusual collectibles found at auctions or junk stores, or the many art pieces “with stories” on display. Unsurprisingly then, when Gary began to work on the interiors of his new house with designer Adri Clery of Atelier Interiors, the pair frequently took inspiration from an existing piece – such as an artwork or decorative item – and worked from there. “The art often led the colour,” he says.

Adri and Gary met via mutual friends with whom both had previously collaborated. As evidenced in the free-wheeling, effervescent interiors of his home, they most definitely hit it off as a design team.

It was immediately obvious that Gary wasn’t afraid of colour, says Adri. But the duo are also clear that while they wanted to push the use of saturated and unusual tones here as far as possible, the process was “absolutely not about randomly throwing colours at a space,” she says. Their process of colour selection is always a painstaking one and takes considerable effort and time. For example, they experimented with 12 different shades of green in Gary’s home office before deciding on the emerald-forest tone that was used.

They also explain that it’s vital to pay careful attention to the relationship between form and colour, especially with regard to furniture. For example, the choice of a bold Pierre Frey orange bouclé for the couch in the living room was influenced by its chunky 1970s proportions. In addition, a boldly colourful piece such as this is always combined carefully with other items, such as the bespoke rug that anchors the living space, and includes shaggy purple and orange details that set off the sofa perfectly.

Set over three floors on its steeply sloped site, the house includes a spacious courtyard garden off the studio and workshop on the lowest storey, with the open-plan living, dining and kitchen on the street level. Above are the large master bedroom and Gary’s home office on the upper floor. Both the street level and upper floors have spacious balconies, and it’s all topped off with a petite roof deck that has the feel of a crow’s nest atop a mast on an old wooden sailing ship. The views in this part of Cape Town are spectacular, and the panorama on show here lives up to that description.

The verticality is reinforced by the central stairway in the house, which functions as a central thread connecting its various levels. The overall result is a feeling of being situated in a forest, linked into the city and mountain views. Then there’s the effect of the delightful courtyard garden, which Gary calls an extremely grounding architectural element. “It’s the best of both worlds,” he says.

Facing north and east, this is “a sunrise house”, says Gary, and he describes the morning light that floods onto the balconies and into his calming master bedroom suite as perfect for basking. Next up on the renovation list? A baby blue kitchen. And, yes, that does mean every element will be baby blue, says Gary: cabinetry, countertops, splashbacks, appliances and lighting. “We could just carry on forever,” laughs Adri.

It’s the way this home blends contrasting energies – nature and culture, groundedness and verticality, tranquillity and exuberance – in which disparate elements pull together and cohere, which makes it such a success. Gary neatly sums it up: “You should be excited when you get home!”