Leisure Escape

Leisure Escape is a brick house on Kensington Gardens with a lawn in front of it big enough to be a nuisance to mow, which is exactly what you want from a holiday house.

You see it across that lawn, behind a vine-covered pergola that shades a paved patio at the front. A large shade tree stands in the middle of the grass and flowering shrubs run along the edges. There is parking and a private entrance. It is detached, so there is nobody through the wall.

The sunroom takes over

The house has more sitting space than most, and the sunroom is where everyone ends up: armchairs, a sofa, a day bed, a television, doors straight out to the garden. A second living room has a brick fireplace, recliners and a bookshelf. The kitchen is a working one, with an island under pendant lights, a stove, a dishwasher and a washing machine.

Three rooms, six beds

It is a three-bedroom house sleeping six. One room has a queen bed, floral curtains and a dressing mirror; another has twin singles with striped cushions either side of a white chest; a third has a bed set under a window framed by bougainvillea. There is a bathtub in one bathroom and glass shower stalls in the others.

Under the pergola

The patio is roofed by a rose-covered pergola, with a table and chairs under it and a glass-walled dining area alongside that looks out over the garden. There is a barbecue and a picnic area. Meals move outside without much discussion.

The island around it

Steenbok Nature Reserve runs along the island’s northern shore, seventeen hectares of coastal thicket that cost nothing and never shut. The lanes are flat enough that nobody needs the car. Shops and eating places cluster up by Kings Park, and there is more to choose from on the island if this house is taken.

Made for

A family of six, or two couples who want gardens and armchairs more than a view.