Pool House

Pool House on Tidswell Avenue is named accurately. A pool runs the length of the back of the house behind bifold doors, with a wraparound wooden deck and a thatched roof over one end of it.

A canvas shade sail covers the paved driveway in front of a double garage, palm trees along its edge. A garden path through flowering shrubs leads to the entrance, and there is private parking. The house is single-storey and long, and most of its rooms open outward.

The painted island and the range

The kitchen is what the house is organised around: a painted island with a wooden worktop, a range cooker in a colour nobody picks by accident, cream cabinetry and a red tiled floor, opening onto the dining and living area. The dining table sits beneath a round mirror with French doors to the pool. White sofas fill a bright living room, and there are wooden floors throughout.

Tufted headboards, glass doors

The bedrooms are calm and consistent: grey tufted headboards, striped bedspreads, matching lamps, a bench seat at the foot of one. Several have glass doors opening directly onto the garden or an outdoor court, and one is a twin with blue upholstered headboards. The bathrooms range from a plain room with a freestanding tub and a small window to a larger one with twin sinks and a walk-in shower.

Pizza oven on the deck

The deck wraps the pool with an outdoor dining set and wooden chairs under the thatch. A covered patio alongside holds a built-in braai, a pizza oven and a kettle braai, with a sofa facing the garden. Decorative ornaments run along the pool wall.

Tidswell Avenue and the reserve

The island is residential, flat and reached only by the Armstrong Road causeway. Seventeen hectares of coastal thicket make up Steenbok Nature Reserve along the northern edge, free and never closed. There is more on Leisure Isle to look through.

Set up for

A family, or two sharing, who will cook and swim and not go far. The braai arrangements alone justify a week.