Nuala Haugheymeets two Irishwomen who have redesigned one of South Africa's most luxurious game lodges. (Well, somebody had to do it.)
The world of interior design can be hard-bitten and predatory, but few Irish designers literally risk being eaten alive on the job. But then few Irish designers work deep in the South African bushveld, making over one of the world's top safari lodges. Such is the challenge that faced Cathy O'Clery, a Newry-born photographic stylist, and Yvonne O'Brien, Dublin-born interior designer, when they teamed up to revamp Londolozi private game reserve.
The two Irishwomen may be self-avowed urbanites, but it was to them that Londolozi's owners, the Varty family, turned when they wanted some suites redesigned and their brochure updated. Founded 80 years ago as a modest hunters' camp on the edge of Kruger National Park, Londolozi has become one of South Africa's most exclusive reserves, offering spectacular viewing of the "big five" mammals - lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo - combined with lavish accommodation and gourmet food.
A typical day could begin with guests on a dawn game drive watching lions feast on a kill, followed by a hearty breakfast back at camp and then a pre-lunch swim in an infinity pool overlooking, perhaps, a herd of grazing elephants. After lunch there is time for a massage or a ranger-led bush walk before setting out on an evening game drive, including scenic sun-down drinks in the savannah.
As a photo stylist, O'Clery had to ensure that Londolozi's new publicity material reflected its combination of unbridled nature and restrained luxury. At one point she found herself driving around in an open-top Land Rover, trying to pose ball-gowned models against herds of giraffe. At another she was up before dawn to fill a stone tub with bubble bath on rocks in a crocodile-infested river.
"There is definitely a thrill to shooting at dawn beside a river knowing there are wild animals around," she says during a break on a huge teak veranda overlooking the reed-lined Sand River. "When out shooting in the bush, always at the back of your mind is: Where is the vehicle? I always scan the horizon. Obviously, I prefer to work in an open plain than down by the river, where there are crocodiles or buffalo in the long reeds."
The result of her labour - glossy images bathed in the golden light of dawn or dusk - may look effortlessly spontaneous, but the preparation for each photo shoot involved dispatching armed game rangers to "zone" the location for fresh animal tracks. During one shoot the team had to hurriedly retreat from a herd of elephants; on another they got to see one of Londolozi's famed leopards lead her cubs to a recent kill.
"The mood we were aiming for is a mix of total relaxed interaction with the environment with the sense that anything goes, that you could literally have a ball in the bush. It's a sense of adventure yet still within the comfort zone for a top-end tourist," says O'Clery, who has worked in Johannesburg for 12 years as a stylist and decor journalist.
A daughter of the former Irish Timesforeign correspondent Conor O'Clery, she grew up in Dublin and moved to London when she was 22. She was working in an antiques shop when Min Hogg, the founding editor of the World of Interiors magazine, was taken by her window displays and, out of the blue, offered her a job.
In 1995, less than a year after the election of Nelson Mandela brought South Africa's apartheid regime to a close, O'Clery moved to Johannesburg with her husband and two young sons - her youngest was then just six weeks old.
After a spell as a stay-at-home mum she returned to journalism. One of her earliest magazine features brought her to the bush. "When I first came to the bush I was scared of everything that moved, every little bug, and I thought lions were going to jump out from every corner," she says. "With experience I became much more aware of how animals interact with humans and of the noises of the bush. You couldn't just fly a stylist in from London to shoot an African game lodge. You have to know how these places operate. It's not like running a hotel anywhere else in the world. No hotel in Europe is going to bring its guests out into the middle of the bush for a surprise candlelit dinner."
Londolozi - the name is Zulu for "protector of all living things" - was set up in 1926 as a spartan hunting lodge where guests shot their own dinner, then grilled it over a campfire. It later became one of the first hunting camps in South Africa to realise the potential of bringing in tourists to photograph animals rather than to shoot them, and eventually it joined the exclusive Relais & Chateaux network.
Today Londolozi charges up to €700 per guest per night, competing at the luxury end of the eco-tourism market with neighbouring properties in the game-rich Sabi Sands reserve, such as Richard Branson's Ulusaba safari lodge and the ultrastylish Singita.
A stay in the reserve guarantees no shortage of thrills - such as being so close to a huge rhino that you can smell its breath - and the bush itself, with its scorched soil, barbed trees and expansive skies, cannot fail to evoke a sense of awe.
The Varty family - husband-and-wife team Shan and Dave and their adult children, Bronwyn and Boyd - hired O'Clery and O'Brien after resuming control of the lodge from an outside company that had managed it for years.
Shan points out the site of the original hunters' campfire, which is still lit every night. "We now have the opportunity to reposition the lodge. We've come full circle, back to the fire, back to the family, back to the heart of the Sabi Sands. We want the feeling of a very small, intimate and personalised safari with a very sophisticated, clean quality to the accommodation."
O'Clery has extensive experience in styling photographs for the luxury safari market, but O'Brien normally designs chic private residences. Shan Varty says she asked O'Brien to refurbish two of the reserve's five camps because she admired her classic and relaxed style.
As the mother of two children, aged four and 18 months, O'Brien was planning to take a break from her busy design business in Johannesburg when she was offered the job. "I said: 'You know what? It's an opportunity I can't turn down.' I kind of feel that I've put my own children on hold for a couple of months, because it has taken up a lot of time."
O'Brien describes her look for the project as a "classical contemporary version of Out of Africa". She says: "I think when people come to the bush they don't want a five-star-hotel look. People want to feel that they are in Africa, with the open jeep, sitting on a campaign chair looking at elephants, but with the crystal glasses and champagne too. What I am doing in one of the camps is quite a Ralph Lauren kind of look, with sisal rugs with leather borders and coffee tables with trays of African objects. You've got that and your mosquito net, so it's that colonial feel, but in a very modern way - a kind of classic safari."
O'Brien's signature style includes lots of cottons and linens; here, she says, she quickly realised that more durable fabrics were needed, to withstand exposure to the harsh bush and to the attention of insects, reptiles, vervet monkeys and baboons.
"The Vartys wanted that relaxed look, but they didn't want me to use anything that they would have to replace in six months, so I started looking at more practical fabrics, like suede and polyester and leather," she explains, laying out fabric samples in rich chocolate browns and intense greys.
"What I'm trying to achieve is what I do with residential properties, but in a commercial way. I've just had to be clever with the fabrics. When I do a residence it has got elements of Africa, because that is where we live. It's not Provencal. It's shabby-chic and relaxed. Our lifestyle lends itself to that relaxed look."
O'Brien left Ireland with her family when she was two. Her father's work as an airline executive brought them to Zambia, Botswana and, eventually, South Africa; they settled in Johannesburg when Yvonne was 12. Like O'Clery, O'Brien gained experience in London, studying interior design while working for the designer Nina Campbell; she returned to Johannesburg to set up her own practice.
O'Brien, who says she loves the bush, visited Londolozi often before taking the job there. Nevertheless, she finds little romance in a work environment where temperatures can hit 40 degrees and potential hazards include being bitten by snakes, being gored by buffalo and contracting malaria. During one of her work trips she caught tick-bite fever and was confined to bed for days with debilitating headaches. "I'm accustomed to the bush, but I'm still a city girl," she says, "so I'm still lying in bed and looking at the thatch roof and thinking to myself that a snake could easily get in there."
Although she would love to do work in Ireland - she has designed two apartments in London for South African clients - South Africa is very much home. "I love the South African sunshine too much," she says, lamenting her lack of an Irish accent. O'Clery and her family, on the other hand, dream of some day quitting South Africa for Ireland. She would like her sons, aged 12 and 14, to experience life in Europe and also has ambitions to start a business, ideally somewhere in the North.
"I think Northern Ireland is very similar to how South Africa was 10 years ago. Both had been largely cut off from tourism for a long time. There seems to be huge potential, because it's a very beautiful part of the world. I think tourism will boom, and I have various ideas of how I would take advantage of that," she says.
"I don't think that if we did move back to Ireland we would ever cut our ties with South Africa, though, and if I were to come back here it would be to go back to the bush, because that's the sort of thing I know I'm going to miss terribly."
Londolozi's website is www.londolozi.com; Yvonne O'Brien's site is www.yvonneobrien.co.za