oh YAY Jessica & Luke’s restaurant Nook has been featured in the December issue of House & Leisure!
so excited & proud of them, if you guys haven’t visited yet – please do
Tag Archives | stellenbosch
la gratitude
one of the best things i own is this framed etching of La Gratitude manor in Dorp Street, Stellenbosch. my dad bought it from some poor guy who was actually peddling it door to door. he seemed a bit down on his luck, so pops took it off his hands for something ridiculous like… R350. i don’t really LOVE the etching, but i really like the fact that it’s of a building in stellenbosch (born & raised) – and a place i walk past almost everyday.
what caught my attention most of all was the frame, which is on the verge of falling apart & also super dusty (i don’t want to clean it too much, in case it breaks). it has this faded green velvet inner border & little flowers all around the edges. i’m a tart for ornate frames, you see.
i do think that it’s pretty old, even though i’m sure that the dude who was selling it must have lied his pants off about what it was actually worth. there’s a calendar from 1911-1912 stuck on the back – which is kind of odd, but perhaps some kind of indication of its age.
either way, it’s lovely.
spring day, 1990
every spring day (sept 1st) at our primary school there would be a ‘spring hat’ competition for the younger kids. don’t ask me why, but we all took it pretty seriously. well, perhaps i didn’t take it AS seriously as some of the other seven year old girls – whose MOMS made their hats. needless to say, i didn’t win. it was a sad day for my my little ponies.
(my mom was probably laughing hysterically when she took this photo, bless her.)
nook eatery
my friends jessica & luke have just opened a new restaurant in stellenbosch (south africa) called Nook. woweeeee guys, it’s really awesome! if you’re in the neighbourhood, go go go! they have tasty coffee, pastries, cakes and obviously savoury delights, too. i designed their logo, menu etc – and also organised groovy pics for the interior.
i kind of want to live there, wouldn’t you? Nook Eatery – 42 van Ryneveld Street – Stellenbosch, South Africa.
edit: more posts about nook here, here & here. also see the food series jessica & i are doing
all photos taken by me
snow, glorious snow
these were taken by my brother in august of 2003 (on film! it’s very sound of music, no? fa la la). in and around stellenbosch, franschhoek, villiersdorp/caledon area + ceres. i wonder if we’ll have snow like this again this year? right now we’re experiencing those cold yet sunny days, i guess autumn is prettaaay awesome.
stellenbosch before & after
stellenbosch is well know for its beautiful historic buildings (ranging from the cape dutch through to the victorian town houses). what i find unbelievable is how many of them were torn down in the sixties & seventies to build flats, office blocks and the like. here’s a small retrospective of some of the bad (and some not so bad) before and afters.
(now with google street view! woop!)
corner of bird & church streets (luckily there’s a Vida here now, instead of a Mr. Video)
corner of andringa & plein streets
corner of mill/bird/church streets – the entire block to the right of the present building (above) was torn down (and subsequently replaced by a supermarket). i’m having trouble finding pictures of the original buildings that were in this area, but i know that it was known as Mill Square.
this is a bit more difficult to see, but the right hand corner of the original photo is where the new building stands today
in the before, the victorian building on the right was torn down & replaced with the brownish building 2nd from the corner (the original corner building is not visible in the before picture)
1901 vs now
on the right hand side of the corner of ryneveld & plein streets is the ABSA building as it stands today. the original building was torn down in the fourties (second picture), then on top of that they built a men’s res for the university sometimes in the sixties (third picture). that was subsequently torn down and a new building was built in 1995 – emulating the original facade.
Herte Street has always been one of the prettiest streets in stellenbosch (for me) – except that someone decided it was a good idea to replace one of the the original cape dutch buildings with this block of flats that now sits inbetween a victorian town house & the cape dutch slave cottages that run down to the corner.
the original building was torn down in the seventies because the town council & someengineers decided it was a good idea to widen Market street in order to help with traffic congestion. luckily they stopped with the street widening about 800 metres down the road, just before they were supposed to tear into some more historical buildings (you can still see where the street immediately becomes narrower again, next to the Stumble Inn Backpackers). unfortunately the original old building was a victim, and now they’re using the site for a builder’s warehouse.
probably the saddest example, the little church they tore down to build that huge office block (in plein street).
sometimes progress isn’t progress at all.
