Leisure Isle Beach Home

Leisure Isle Beach Home is a four-bedroom house on Tidswell Avenue arranged almost entirely around a pool and the covered patio beside it. The name says beach; the real draw is water you can get into without leaving the property.

A paved driveway runs in past a boundary wall and a gate, with private parking behind it, and a path leads between palm trees to a side gate. The front gives little away. The house turns its attention to the back.

Stone wall, long table

The lounge has sofas facing a television mounted on a stone feature wall. The dining area beside it is open, with a long table and display shelving down one side. The kitchen runs to a gas stove, a wooden island and a fridge. A utility room holds the washing machine, the tumble dryer and the gas cylinders.

Teal walls and life rings

Four bedrooms sleep eight, painted teal almost throughout and dressed in striped or navy bedspreads over colourful rugs. Two are twins, one hung with nautical life rings, and a couple open straight onto the patio. Of the two bathrooms, one has a corner bathtub with a separate shower and the other a glass shower above a dark wood vanity.

The braai and the plunge pool

The pool runs alongside a covered patio holding rattan sofas, a long dining table with bench seating and a built-in braai station with a gas grill under the roof. There is a plunge pool with a stone water feature and life rings on the wall. A small bar counter with stools faces back towards the pool.

The rest of the island

Tidswell Avenue is quiet and residential, as most of Leisure Isle is, and one causeway on Armstrong Road is the way on and off. Steenbok Nature Reserve covers the northern shore and costs nothing to walk. There are guest houses a short way off if you would rather somebody else made breakfast.

Best suited to

Two families sharing, or one large one, who will spend the day beside the pool rather than in the car.