“We thought it would be quite a fun trip to go and have a look at it.” And so began a love affair with an empty piece of land that, a bit more than a decade later, would be the site of a fantastical holiday home beyond most safari lodge owners’ wildest dreams.

In this photo: A sunken fire-pit with built-in circular seating makes a great vantage point t o enjoy views of the heavily forested vegetation.

Rory snapped up the 800 hectares on offer at the time. “It didn’t have any accommodation on it, but it was next door to where the lodge is now,” says Rory. “We were able to stay in the lodge, which was run by this kind of eccentric Italian.” One by one he began buying the surrounding farms, eventually accumulating 8,000 hectares, and the lodge as well. In time all the fences between the farms were removed.

In this photo: The rondavels that house the bedrooms have extensive private decks that highlight a car ved traditional African birthing chair.

“Along the way we stocked it with game and we tried to return it to how it used to be, letting it all regenerate,” says Rory. He and his wife Lizzy would often have friends and family visiting Leobo, and began contemplating building a villa for themselves and their children that was separate from the existing lodge. They usually stayed for a month at a time.

In this photo: The kitchen features Corian basins and worktops, telescopic roller drawers, and a butcher’s block made from a leadwood tree trunk.

“Now we can have friends coming and going while we’re in the house,” says Rory. “It works really well.”

In this photo: Seen through the antique Indian doors, the dining room reveals a hand-hewn table quarried in Limpopo Province, juxtaposed with a chandelier made from an entire hippopotamus skeleton.

Rory and Lizzy asked the renowned South African architects Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens to design their bush villa. The couple had stayed at North Island in the Seychelles, the award-winning exclusive resort designed by Silvio and Lesley. (It’s where Prince William and Kate honeymooned.) They have designed some of the best safari lodges around the African continent, too.

In this photo: The veranda is shaded b y an extended pergola supported by giant leadw ood trunks. The armchairs were designed by the South African furnitur e designer John Vogel while the bespoke coffee table is crafted from hand-made glazed ceramic tiles stit ched together with leather thong.

Their work is often referred to as pioneering a “New African” aesthetic, which fuses a range of African spatial, architectural, and decorative influences, and often involves working closely with craftsmen to create something almost rustic, but modern, fresh, and sophisticated. They have been likened to African Gaudis, sculpting organic forms and creating rich sensory, tactile experiences, and decorative details.

In this photo: The pool is central to the main lounge, designed to blend into the rocky terrain below the house.

The Observatory is “a spatial adventure” in itself—rational and carefully thought through, but designed to provide experiences, surprises, and delight around every corner.

In this photo: Full-size daybeds on the pool deck make for a per fect spot t o lounge and dry off after a swim.

“It’s essentially a veranda house concept with all these other little accretions,” says Silvio, explaining how the large, central living area and veranda has other “cells” clustered around it, interconnecting and “honeycombing” their way into the spaces between. “It’s like a house turned into a little urban design,” he says. “It’s a citadel, almost.”

In this photo: The fabrics are hand-dyed natural linen and wools in a quiet, mut ed palette to complement the colours of natur e in the surrounding bush.

In this photo: In the bedroom, the four-poster beds are made from hand-hewn and -polished leadwood.

Read the full story in the latest edition of Philippine Tatler Homes is now available in all leading newsstands and bookstores, and downloadable via Magzter, Zinio, or PressReader.