Our Dream Home

Home on Palm Lakes Estate

After 25 years in Richards Bay, Johan and Elmarie Richards decided to embark on a new challenge. Although both have successful practices in Richards Bay, the allure of the vibrant Dolphin Coast was their choice for the next chapter in life.

Johan and Elmarie have two sons, but in essence it was their youngest son who helped them make the seamless choice, as Simon’s current Grantleigh School was acquired by Curro Holdings. Riaan, the couple’s eldest son has been involved in projects with Johan, and after 4 years at UCT, has chosen to return to the north coast, due to the more ambient climate.

Johan and Elmarie expanded their quantity surveying and attorney practice to an office in the much sought after Simbithi Office Park, and in 2015, Johan and Leon Ackerman joined forces and Richacre Developments was born, offering a one stop shop for any development.

As Johan and Elmarie have offices in both Ballito and Richards Bay, the absolutely ideal location for their new home would be between the two, and Palm Lakes Estate ticked all their boxes for a more sedentary lifestyle without compromising quality.

After two years renting in the lovely Palm Lakes Family Estate, Johan and Elmarie decided to buy a piece of land and build their dream home. This dream become a reality in October 2017.

“But this was never going to be any ordinary home and Johan has always loved challenges and building a home was just the sort of challenge that he revels in”, says Elmarie. “With the high cost of building and lengthy building time lines, I decided to embark on a journey of finding ways to build a quicker and cheaper home, but without sacrificing quality and aesthetics” states Johan. He felt that by saving time and money during the construction period, this would leave more freedom to clad and finish the building.

The brief was that the house had to embrace the organic nature of earth in both harmony and respect and therefore they decided on a steel structure for the frame of the house, which would sit on a slight incline giving the illusion of the building floating above the site.

Palm Lakes Home

Architect, Charles Taylor combined the large aluminium windows, bricks and vertical roof cladding to perfectly blend in with the surrounds and he experimented with the cement plaster finishes creating the final overall architectural language of simplified architecture in harmony with nature.

During Construction - Palm Lakes

The steel structure was manufactured off site and assembled on site on piles and footing; “a bit like a mechano set” laughs Johan. This only took a period of 2 weeks to erect and where possible the structure and bracing was left exposed, displaying the sheer simplicity of the building. With the structure up, the slabs could be utilised as permanent formwork plates to reduce the amount of reinforcing and the propping required. The advantage of this method is that you already have ceilings and floors and by adding different stone aggregates, you can produce different floor finishes, leaving you with a virtually maintenance free floor finish.

Due to the unique structure any material could have been used to close the building, however Johan and Elmarie wanted to stay with organic material and chose cement bricks laid brick on edge with a 50mm cavity, resulting in approximately 30% less bricks being used.

The internal garden quadrant is designed to bring in an oasis of light and fresh air, allowing all the rooms to be flooded with natural light. The large wrap around veranda creates a natural barrier and softens the enjoyment of the East Coast sunsets.

Rainwater is harvested into three 5 kilo litre tanks under the ground slab, where it is filtered and recycled for domestic household use. “Our water management was attended to by contractor Leon Ackerman from Richacre Projects, and Leon is a master in dealing with storm water effectively”, says Johan.

The landscaped and carefully planned garden will be lovingly attended to by Elmarie, incorporating her 25 year old breathtaking cycads into the new garden.

However, once all is said and done, the pièce de résistance is the view over the Horse Shoe Dam from the veranda, watching the grazing impala and swaying palm trees and just being one with nature.